A realistic, humorous, and compassionate treatment of middle school angst makes for an accessible and appealing read.
Sixth-grader Abbie Wu knows that “if something CAN go wrong, it definitely WILL!”
And it does. The hilariously glum Asian protagonist of Frazzled: Everyday Disasters and Impending Doom (2016) is back with more mishaps and doom. Over Abbie’s protests, her little sister, Clara, is given a cat for her birthday, and of course, Mr. Felix McSnuggles the Third diabolically terrorizes Abbie when no one else is looking. At school, the sixth-graders are finally getting their own lockers—but when Abbie goes to unlock hers, she finds that it has been “hijacked by a MONSTER.” Things continue downhill when the science teacher assigns everyone to a partner for the upcoming unit, and inevitably Abbie’s partner is...the locker thief. While readers may anticipate the general plot direction (“I guess, when you think about it, some things really do work out”), they will also appreciate Abbie’s astute observations (“Teachers never let you choose your partner, and unless you were very very lucky, you usually got someone you never really wanted to get at all”) and Vivat’s fresh, funny illustrations. Cartoon vignettes seamlessly capture a diverse cast—in a telling aside, Abbie’s portrayal of teachers mistaking her for another Asian girl, Abbie Wong, is particularly sharp.
A realistic, humorous, and compassionate treatment of middle school angst makes for an accessible and appealing read. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-239881-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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