Please, nobody stop Ivy Pocket.
Everyone’s favorite maid of mass destruction is back, so baddies beware!
Like Oliver Twist but with decidedly more delusions of grandeur, former maid Ivy Pocket (last seen in Anyone but Ivy Pocket, 2015) finds herself newly adopted by a pair of nefarious coffin makers. Not that Ivy, impervious to hints and clues, is capable of noticing their dire deeds, even though she’s surrounded by villains on every side (a malicious ghost, a familiar face in disguise, and a vengeful sister). Ivy has two remarkable possessions; a magical Clock Diamond that allows wearers to travel between dimensions and a trademark hubris that lends her a strange sort of invincibility. When she discovers that an old friend is trapped in another world, it’s Ivy’s headstrong bravery that is both her downfall and her salvation. Ivy’s self-delusions have become more comforting than annoying in this second adventure. Though she is drugged, hunted, and trapped in a madhouse, nothing leaves so much as a mark on her chipper worldview. Krisp’s writing also proves to be as hilarious as ever (“I…began thrashing the carpet as if it were a wayward son who had just lost the family estate, and quite possibly his pants, in a rather thrilling game of checkers”); his and Cantini’s 19th-century London appears to be largely white. After this book, readers will demand to know more about Ivy’s background, even as they clamor for her next outing.
Please, nobody stop Ivy Pocket. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: May 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-236437-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch.
Basketball-playing twins find challenges to their relationship on and off the court as they cope with changes in their lives.
Josh Bell and his twin, Jordan, aka JB, are stars of their school basketball team. They are also successful students, since their educator mother will stand for nothing else. As the two middle schoolers move to a successful season, readers can see their differences despite the sibling connection. After all, Josh has dreadlocks and is quiet on court, and JB is bald and a trash talker. Their love of the sport comes from their father, who had also excelled in the game, though his championship was achieved overseas. Now, however, he does not have a job and seems to have health problems the parents do not fully divulge to the boys. The twins experience their first major rift when JB is attracted to a new girl in their school, and Josh finds himself without his brother. This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. Most interesting is the family dynamic that informs so much of the narrative, which always reveals, never tells. While Josh relates the story, readers get a full picture of major and minor players. The basketball action provides energy and rhythm for a moving story.
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch. (Verse fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-10771-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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