How will identical twins survive separation for the first time, especially when there’s a monster in their Minneapolis neighborhood?
Fifth grade is full of big changes for white identical twins Iris and Lark when they discover they will not only have different teachers, but different after-school activities. A third-person—although not omniscient—narrator recounts the twins’ story. Identifying this narrator is the start of many mysteries. And although the plot revolves around the girls’ burgeoning independence, Ursu focuses most on the separation’s effect on Iris. Having watched her sister face multiple illnesses, she’s become Lark’s protector and remains reluctant to give up this role. Grounded in spot-on twin truths, the mysterious story is also a modern-day fantasy with myriad components: local art heists and an antiques store with cryptic signs; the store owner’s magical experiments and missing sister; Lark’s own missing items and fondness for crows; Iris’ Pied Piper dreams and folktale musings; Iris’ after-school program at the library and its diverse group of girls, who explore self-esteem and feminism. The details are astounding, but the overall effect is overly ambitious. When the monster finally appears, the finale feels rushed as the girls work to defeat him. But the process allows the twins to realize that growing up doesn’t mean growing apart. Charming illustrations throughout reflect both the girls’ subtle physical differences and larger adventures.
Ursu’s fans will find much to love. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-227509-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
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With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded.
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Tiny, sassy Bob the dog, friend of The One and Only Ivan (2012), returns to tell his tale.
Wisecracking Bob, who is a little bit Chihuahua among other things, now lives with his girl, Julia, and her parents. Happily, her father works at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary, the zoo where Bob’s two best friends, Ivan the gorilla and Ruby the elephant, live, so Bob gets to visit and catch up with them regularly. Due to an early betrayal, Bob doesn’t trust humans (most humans are good only for their thumbs); he fears he’s going soft living with Julia, and he’s certain he is a Bad Dog—as in “not a good representative of my species.” On a visit to the zoo with a storm threatening, Bob accidentally falls into the gorilla enclosure just as a tornado strikes. So that’s what it’s like to fly. In the storm’s aftermath, Bob proves to everyone (and finally himself) that there is a big heart in that tiny chest…and a brave one too. With this companion, Applegate picks up where her Newbery Medal winner left off, and fans will be overjoyed to ride along in the head of lovable, self-deprecating Bob on his storm-tossed adventure. His wry doggy observations and attitude are pitch perfect (augmented by the canine glossary and Castelao’s picture dictionary of dog postures found in the frontmatter). Gorilla Ivan described Julia as having straight, black hair in the previous title, and Castelao's illustrations in that volume showed her as pale-skinned. (Finished art not available for review.)
With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded. (afterword) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299131-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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An accused murderer is thrust into an assassin training program.
Seventeen-year-old Signal Deere is serving hard time after a hazy night with her former best friend, Rose, which ended with Rose’s body in her lap, an emotional trial, and the media moniker the “Girl from Hell.” After her caseworker, Dave, assures Signal there’s no way she’ll get a successful appeal, he offers her an alternative: being shipped off to a mysterious camp and enrolled in a top-secret government training program unofficially known as the Teen Killers Club. There, Signal and other adolescent Class A felons (the most dangerous kind) undergo various drills—among them, dismembering fake corpses and dissolving flesh in acid—in preparation for eventually being used as assassins against government targets. The teens have been injected with a device remotely controlled by their trainers that will kill them if they attempt to escape the camp or otherwise disobey orders. As Signal nurses an attraction to sensitive tattooed Javier and fights her feelings for handsome sociopath Erik, she begins to piece together what really happened that night with Rose. Sparks crafts a page-turner with a disturbingly unusual premise, snappy dialogue, and characters that go deeper than their heinous crimes. Signal and Erik are assumed White; love interest Javier is cued as Latinx, and there is some diversity in the supporting cast.
A mystery/thriller that’s equal parts heartfelt and shocking. (Thriller. 15-adult)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64385-229-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
Categories: TEEN MYSTERY & THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE
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The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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