Seventh grade has brought many changes in the life of 12-year-old Cassi, and she must figure out how to be herself through them all.
Daniella, Cassi’s older sister, has started high school and gone from being her best friend to a sullen and withdrawn stranger around the house. Her beloved Buelo has dementia and must now reside in a nursing home. Cassi has also become aware—and bothered by the realization—that though she feels very much connected to her Puerto Rican background on her mother’s side, others do not readily recognize the white, red-headed girl’s identity as Latinx (she gets her coloring from her Irish American father). On the other hand, this year she has qualified for Math Olympics, her best and favorite activity. And she’s made a friend in Aaron, a new, white student in school and a fellow member of the Math Olympics team. It is from Aaron’s story that the book gets its title (his father is writing a memoir about living in towns named for trees). Cassi’s character is well developed, making this first-person narration the ring true, but the other characters in the story are not as fully formed. Ironically, at times it is difficult to decide if Turley’s handling of Cassi’s looks reinforces or dispels the myth that Latinx people have a specific, definable appearance. The book ends on a hopeful note that does not trivialize the hurdles this smart young character faces.
A sensitive story of family, friendship, and personal growth. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-2064-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK TO SCREEN
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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