High fly balls and low humor, on and off the basepaths.
In this second series entry, young ballplayers discover that numbers on the scoreboard aren’t the only way to measure wins.
Along with offering mini-clinics in batting, catching fly balls, and safely removing leeches, among other general life skills, the mixed-gender traveling team (newly renamed the Wurtmore Turdles for its port-a-potty sponsor) weathers bullies, crushes on teammates, and undergoes a range of emotional challenges from a lost pet to a lost parent over the course of a summer tournament. Chick stirs generous quantities of coaching and self-coaching into game action that’s highlighted by gleeful just deserts for sneering archrivals who steal a jar of especially potent pickles and later pay the intestinal price. The behavior modeling, sporting and otherwise, may weigh heavily at times but is generally buoyed by the alimentary humor and an upbeat ending: The Turdles rebound from a tournament loss as Pel, one of the ensemble members who shares narrative duties, takes steps toward healing from the grief of his father’s death and at last cements relations with the team’s catcher, Diesel. Diesel’s real given name, Huyen, cues some racial diversity in the cast that’s backed up by Radlicki’s lively illustrations of the middle school–aged ballplayers.
High fly balls and low humor, on and off the basepaths. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781524884888
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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
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