A sensitive story about sexual harassment and bullying with a feel-good ending.
Three eighth-graders manage the fallout after someone publishes a ranked list of the prettiest girls in their class.
Being ranked No. 1 throws young poet Eve Hoffman’s life into chaos. A second-place ranking knocks Sophie Kane for a loop, too; she’s desperate never to be seen as “less than” or “white trash” like her single mom. Nessa Flores-Brady never expected to make the list (not because she’s Latina, but because she’s fat), and she’s determined not to let it affect her. Still, the rankings put Eve and Nessa’s best friendship at risk, threaten Sophie’s status as the most popular, and galvanize the eighth grade into targeted bullying. The rude, disgusting, and occasionally anti-Semitic messages that flood Eve’s phone are all too familiar for anyone who’s attended a majority-white middle-class American school—even their principal, an Asian American woman, recalls a time a boy snapped her bra so hard she bled, and no adults did anything. To the girls’ credit, they communicate about the effects of normative beauty standards and band together against the people (mostly boys) who enforce them, but of course the perpetrator isn’t whom they think. Eve’s older brother, Abe, and classmate Winston (who seems to be white) offer windows into the pressures of toxic masculinity. Endearingly nerdy references permeate the narrative. Their school is a diverse one, with difference mostly conveyed through naming convention.
A sensitive story about sexual harassment and bullying with a feel-good ending. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62672-923-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
Heartwarming fare for young pet owners who feel the love and loyalty going both ways.
Devotion permeates this tale of a small dog who’s swept up in a peasants’ revolt against a greedy king.
Inflamed with righteousness in the wake of yet another tax hike, 12-year-old Tom has defied his parents to slip away and join the revolutionary Reds. Stoutly declaring that he’s a good dog, 5-year-old Rebel chases after him to bring his beloved boy back—and discovers a wide new world beyond the farm, fraught with dangers but also rich in animal friends offering help and advice. Just as beguiling as the furry narrator’s dog’s-eye view of events are his ongoing arguments with Jaxon, a gruff feral hound he meets along the way, who urges him to find his wild inner True Dog. Jaxon’s refusal to be bound by emotional attachments ultimately clashes with Rebel’s big, uncomplicated heart. Following a brush with death, Rebel encounters a mystical Companion, who offers him glimpses of dog heaven; when the climactic battle arrives, Rebel declares, “I get to decide what I do with my one and only life. And if I use it for anything, I’m going to use it for love.” The author brings the odyssey to a satisfactory conclusion with one last, pure affirmation of love. In this story set in an alternate Britain reminiscent of its 17th-century Civil War, Rebel distinguishes humans in the cast by their voices, smell, and dress.
Heartwarming fare for young pet owners who feel the love and loyalty going both ways. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781536246797
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
