by Angela Dominguez ; illustrated by Angela Dominguez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 14, 2020
The protagonist will endear readers to her; she may also create some environmental converts.
A family trip to Mexico inspires a girl to save the oceans.
Stella is going to have a great summer. Her mother is taking her and her older brother to Mexico to visit family, and when they return to Chicago, she’ll be attending day camp at the Shedd Aquarium! But she soon finds out the ocean isn’t all fun and games. It’s filled with plastic and trash. With her friends from day camp, Stella starts a club and pledges to reduce her own impact on the ocean and to encourage others to do the same, passing along what she learns to readers as she goes. Stella’s narrative voice is earnest and authentic to her age; the text is not detailed enough to make for a good classroom complement to an environmental or marine unit or to satisfy avid ocean fans, but it may inspire readers to start to be interested in marine ecology and environmental activism. Dominguez explains her choice to italicize Spanish words in an author’s note as an aid for children unfamiliar with the language. Readers who are comfortable with Spanish already may feel that words seem sprinkled in just to teach vocabulary rather than being a true, natural use of Spanish for a heritage speaker of the language. This is Stella’s second outing, but readers don’t need familiarity with Stella Díaz Has Something To Say (2018) to fall in love with her.
The protagonist will endear readers to her; she may also create some environmental converts. (Fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-22911-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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by Suzy Kline ; illustrated by Amy Wummer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 27, 2018
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode.
A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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by Shelley Johannes ; illustrated by Shelley Johannes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 19, 2017
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that.
Beatrice Zinker is a kinder, gentler Judy Moody.
Beatrice doesn’t want to be fit in a box. Her first word was “WOW,” not “Mom.” She does her best thinking upside down and prefers to dress like a ninja. Like Judy Moody, she has patient parents and a somewhat annoying younger brother. (She also has a perfectly ordinary older sister.) Beatrice spends all summer planning a top-secret spy operation complete with secret codes and a secret language (pig Latin). But on the first day of third grade, her best friend, Lenny (short for Eleanor), shows up in a dress, with a new friend who wants to play veterinarian at recess. Beatrice, essentially a kind if somewhat quirky kid, struggles to see the upside of the situation and ends up with two friends instead of one. Line drawings on almost every spread add to the humor and make the book accessible to readers who might otherwise balk at its 160 pages. Thankfully, the rhymes in the text do not continue past the first chapter. Children will enjoy the frequent puns and Beatrice’s preference for climbing trees and hanging upside down. The story drifts dangerously close to pedantry when Beatrice asks for advice from a grandmotherly neighbor but is saved by likable characters and upside-down cake. Beatrice seems to be white; Lenny’s surname, Santos, suggests that she may be Latina; their school is a diverse one.
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that. (Fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-6738-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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