Burdened by contradictory expectations from her high-achieving, divorced parents, a quiet tween is challenged to assert herself.
Lilla’s parents, like many in their small college town, are academics. Her dad heads the art museum; her mom is an entomologist. Stellar seventh-grade test scores set Lilla on course for the prestigious magnet high school where students focus on either arts or STEM subjects. Weary of the constant pressure to excel, to pick a career path before she’s 13, Lilla fantasizes about attending public high school and pursuing interests beyond the career-focused specialization her parents have convinced themselves she wants, but she remains outwardly compliant. Her passivity is no secret to her friends Vivi and Knox. When Vivi chooses bravery for their summer goal, Lilla agrees to express her feelings honestly, without resorting to white lies or silence. She struggles to manage conflicting expectations for girls—to be simultaneously ambitious and competitive, feminine and emotionally yielding. While that’s exhausting enough, contending with sexism and street harassment along with her first crush proves downright paralyzing. Choosing never to hurt others’ feelings, Lilla realizes, means always prioritizing them over expressing her own (ruthless self-criticism is another trap). Vivi’s dad is Japanese and her mother is French Canadian; other major characters are White. With compassion, wry humor, and pinpoint accuracy, Parks weaves the multiple challenges facing adolescent girls into a compelling, seamless narrative.
Timely, insightful, and highly recommended. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-7660-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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A middle school story in which parental depression manifests itself in absence.
Natalie’s vivacious botanist mother (who’s white) has retreated from life, leaving her therapist husband (who’s biracial) and daughter to fill the gaping hole she has left. With the help of an egg-drop contest and a scientific-method project, Natalie explores breakable things and the nurturing of hope. Narrating in first-person, the mixed-race seventh-grader (1/4 Korean and 3/4 white) is drawn to her mother’s book, titled How to Grow A Miracle. It reminds her of when her mother was excited by science and questions and life. With a STEM-inspired chapter framework and illustrated with Neonakis’ scientific drawings, Keller’s debut novel uses the scientific method to unpack the complex emotions depression can cause. Momentum builds over nine months as Natalie observes, questions, researches, experiments, and analyzes clues to her mother’s state of mind. Providing support and some comic relief are her two sidekicks, Dari (a smart Indian immigrant boy) and Twig (Natalie’s wealthy, white best friend). The diversity of the characters provides identity and interest, not issue or plotline. Tension peaks at the egg-drop contest, as the three friends plan to use the prize winnings to bring Natalie’s mother back to life with a gift of a rare cobalt blue orchid. Paralleling their scientific progress, Natalie reluctantly experiences her first visits to talk therapy, slowly opening like a tight bloom.
A compassionate glimpse of mental illness accessible to a broad audience. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1566-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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