An absorbing tale of determination, friendship, and tech gone wrong.
Two kids rebel against intrusive surveillance.
Averil’s a computer whiz who excels in the Tech class that she and her friends Priya and Max are taking, but even she feels suffocated by Ruby Slippers, the app that her parents use to keep tabs on her. Max learns that the app will soon allow parents to turn on the camera and microphone on their kids’ smartphones, and he wants to meet its creator, Rider Woollyback, who has a lab at the local university, and convince him to stop the increased surveillance. Max needs Averil’s tech smarts to enter Woollyback’s inner sanctum—to get in, visitors must win games and provide “interesting” answers to questions posed by his assistant. Max and his multimillionaire father have already failed to gain admittance, and he thinks that successfully getting in will raise his dad’s opinion of him. He proposes that he and Averil ditch their upcoming coding camp and instead attempt to meet Woollyback while Priya covers for Averil. While the plot is a bit far-fetched, Averil and Max’s burgeoning friendship is well developed and will pull in readers. Parks also deftly grapples with relevant issues, such as the sexism that women and girls in STEM often face, the overwhelming presence of technology in our lives, and young people’s need for autonomy. Most characters are cued white; Priya is of Indian descent.
An absorbing tale of determination, friendship, and tech gone wrong. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593618646
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Baudelaire children—Violet, 14, Klaus, 12, and baby Sunny—are exceedingly ill-fated; Snicket extracts both humor and horror from their situation, as he gleefully puts them through one terrible ordeal after another. After receiving the news that their parents died in a fire, the three hapless orphans are delivered into the care of Count Olaf, who “is either a third cousin four times removed, or a fourth cousin three times removed.” The villainous Count Olaf is morally depraved and generally mean, and only takes in the downtrodden yet valiant children so that he can figure out a way to separate them from their considerable inheritance. The youngsters are able to escape his clutches at the end, but since this is the first installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events, there will be more ghastly doings. Written with old-fashioned flair, this fast-paced book is not for the squeamish: the Baudelaire children are truly sympathetic characters who encounter a multitude of distressing situations. Those who enjoy a little poison in their porridge will find it wicked good fun. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-440766-7
Page Count: 162
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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