Here’s hoping more unexpected good things are in store for the Littlefield family.
What starts out to be a bummer summer turns out well in retrospect.
In spite of the title, alluding to Pearl Littlefield's first outing, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister (2011), this represents her first assignment for fifth grade. It's an essay about summer vacation, written to an outline (supplied in the back and as chapter headings). With her father out of a job, money is tight, and except for a month at camp in New Jersey, Pearl and her older sister Lexie stay home in New York City. Still, there is plenty to write about: rescuing the cat that falls from their apartment window; a serious fight with her best friend, James Brubaker III; exhibiting a painting at her grandfather’s retirement community; pretending to be a tourist during the family’s “staycation”; and starting a business with JBIII after they reconcile. Pearl’s first-person narration is convincing and sprinkled with gentle humor. Martin’s characterizations are clear and distinctive; readers won’t need to have met them in the previous title to feel they know them well. Pearl develops some sympathy for her father’s job search and perhaps even for a hated classmate, and she learns—as readers will—that “you never know what’s around the corner.”
Here’s hoping more unexpected good things are in store for the Littlefield family. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-64299-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch.
Basketball-playing twins find challenges to their relationship on and off the court as they cope with changes in their lives.
Josh Bell and his twin, Jordan, aka JB, are stars of their school basketball team. They are also successful students, since their educator mother will stand for nothing else. As the two middle schoolers move to a successful season, readers can see their differences despite the sibling connection. After all, Josh has dreadlocks and is quiet on court, and JB is bald and a trash talker. Their love of the sport comes from their father, who had also excelled in the game, though his championship was achieved overseas. Now, however, he does not have a job and seems to have health problems the parents do not fully divulge to the boys. The twins experience their first major rift when JB is attracted to a new girl in their school, and Josh finds himself without his brother. This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. Most interesting is the family dynamic that informs so much of the narrative, which always reveals, never tells. While Josh relates the story, readers get a full picture of major and minor players. The basketball action provides energy and rhythm for a moving story.
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch. (Verse fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-10771-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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