The story has a lesson worth learning: If a girl has to change “the way she looks and acts” to interest a guy, then maybe...
Things don’t work out as intended when an overorganized, fiercely determined girl tries to get a handsome boy to like her by following a rigidly detailed “Love Plan.”
“Just act like yourself,” Chrissy tells her friend Lauren. But Lauren, who is nothing if not prepared, has been observing Charlie for some time and is absolutely determined to be the kind of girl who will knock his socks off. That’s if she can ever get his attention, though naturally she has a plot for that as well. Even before Lauren pulls out the flow chart, savvy readers will know that her scheme is doomed to failure. Many cringe-worthy moments follow as this initially rather emotionally tone-deaf rising seventh-grader learns to trust her instincts, be a more genuine person and also how to be a friend. This G-rated, nascent, not-quite-romance novel, which takes place during a three-week beach vacation, is squarely aimed at preteen girls and ends on a feel-good note that should please and satisfy them. Although the material never transcends its genre and the characters are somewhat generic, Lauren’s personal evolution is welcome and feels earned.
The story has a lesson worth learning: If a girl has to change “the way she looks and acts” to interest a guy, then maybe that guy isn’t worth interesting. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8038-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Simon Spotlight
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Poignant and heartwarming.
Zephyrina the cat, the “Robin Hood of felines,” rescues discarded toys so they can have new lives.
Zephyrina brings toys back to the apartment she shares with Elizaveta and her daughter, Dasha, refugees from war-torn Ukraine. Dasha reconditions Zephyrina’s rescues and sets them outside for three days, just in case they have owners who want to reclaim them. Afterward, they join the other toys in the parlor—the Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured. Dasha and Elizaveta don’t know that the toys are sentient. At midnight they abandon their rigid daytime postures to cavort and play, overseen by their leader, Pocket, a tiny mascot bear made to comfort soldiers during World War I. One night, Zephyrina brings back a dirty old bear, and Pocket is astounded. The new arrival, Berwon, might come from a lost shipment of the first-ever stuffed bears, sent from Germany to the U.S. in 1903—and if so, he’s worth a fortune. In the ensuing antics, the unpleasant villain Picky Vicky covets Berwon, and a kind museum curator does, too, but for different reasons. Applegate’s writing is exquisitely nuanced; she couches profound themes in accessible language that depicts relatable situations. Gentle, generous Elizaveta and Dasha poignantly underscore the human impact of wars. Santoso’s enchanting, delicate, black-and-white illustrations bring the timeless feeling of a classic to this hopeful, humanizing story of the distressed looking out for each other.
Poignant and heartwarming. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781250904362
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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