A promising beginning to a new series about a spirited character who is discovering her real strengths.
Clara's superpowers include being able to spill things, communicate telepathically with her chinchilla, and wake up at 7:14 every morning, but will they be enough to stop her life from being ruined?
When the track team from a rival school causes mayhem at a meet, Clara and her teammates are angry. When the rival school discovers mold in its walls and the students must join them at Gledhill Elementary, they're even angrier. To make matters worse, Clara discovers that her neighbor and best friend, Momo, is moving to a retirement community. Luckily, Clara has the solution. She and her other best friend, Bradley, get to work strengthening Clara's superpowers in order to drive their rivals from their school and keep Momo's house from being sold. But is it working? Humphrey introduces a new series with an energetic romp through the trials and tribulations of this 9-year-old and her friends. (Clara seems to depict herself and Bradley as white in her pictures; ethnicity is indicated with surnames.) Her characters are funny and flawed and a good antidote to the feeling most kids (and adults!) will find familiar: that the world is out of their control. Illustrations of Clara's comic-book alter ego, @Cat, give the book an extra entertaining element.
A promising beginning to a new series about a spirited character who is discovering her real strengths. (Fiction. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77147-147-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
EllRay, a likable everykid with a sense of humor, is getting picked on; he doesn't know why, nor what to do about it....
The creator of the series about third-grader Emma McGraw (Only Emma, 2005, etc.) focuses on a new character here: EllRay Jakes, one of Emma's classmates.
EllRay, a likable everykid with a sense of humor, is getting picked on; he doesn't know why, nor what to do about it. EllRay's voice is chatty and authentic, especially in articulating kids' and adults' perceptions of the playground dynamic: "Ms. Sanchez is smart about what goes on inside her classroom, but she doesn't know what goes on outside—before school and during nutrition break, lunch and afternoon recess. And outside is when school really happens for kids." When bully Jared reveals he's after EllRay because EllRay once hurt his feelings, it feels a bit pat, although the resolution is realistic: The boys don't become best friends, but they learn to get along. EllRay is African-American in a predominantly white school; race is addressed openly here (he sometimes wishes there were more kids who look like him; his father suspects—incorrectly—that race is the reason EllRay is getting teased) without serving as the main issue, which is refreshing.Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-06243-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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