Curious and willful kids will identify with Skye and enjoy her journey in this coming-of-age tale.
In Carnwath’s middle-grade novel, a young girl hopes to finally meet her father when she visits her mother’s hometown for the first time.
Twelve-year-old Skye Stewart catalogues sea creatures in her home on an island off the coast of Maine, and in the back of her notebook, she composes a list of everything she knows about her dad, whom she’s never known. When her grandmother dislocates her shoulder and needs help on the ranch, Skye and her mother, Sara, drive to Dillon, Wyoming. Skye’s never been there before, and her maternal grandfather, who hasn’t been on speaking terms with Sara for many years, is a stranger to her. The girl quickly makes friends with Tuck Foster, the 9-year-old son of ranch handNate; they introduce Skye to the horses there and teach her to ride. She quickly enlists Tuck in her quest to find her dad, whom she’s convinced has been living in Dillon all this time. Along the way, she learns more about her mother’s history, her grandfather’s problems, and what it means to be a part of a bigger family. Skye is a relatable character, often overcoming her fears to try new things. Readers may wish, though, that the book spent more time on Skye’s connection to her father, before and after his identity is revealed. Still, Carnwath should be applauded for her deft depiction of a child caught up in fraught family dynamics. Skye’s view of her mother and grandfather’s relationship is revealing, as when Sara notes, “he was a good father when I was young…and I knew that when I chose…to be an artist instead of a rancher—he’d likely never get over it.” Overall, the novel offers an important lesson about accepting people for who they are, rather than who we’d like them to be.
Curious and willful kids will identify with Skye and enjoy her journey in this coming-of-age tale.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798896362142
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
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
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