Absorbing and enlightening fare.
A provocative account of a Japanese effort to gain a toehold on American soil during the Second World War.
Mining her family history as well as archival evidence, Fleming recounts the sudden Japanese occupation of the Aleutian island of Attu in 1942 and the hasty counterattack mounted by the U.S. with green Army troops including the author’s father, an ambulance orderly. Thanks in part to a diary left by a Japanese doctor and extensive documentation, including troves of family and official photos, she’s able to weave in humanizing details (even including a Navy meteorologist’s dog) and to tell the story from both sides’ points of view. Fought in frigid, sloppy conditions, the hard-won victory became the second most costly for the U.S. in the Pacific Theater but received little attention. Fleming suggests this because an embarrassing number of casualties resulted from unsuitable gear, poor preparation, and friendly fire. Not only does she tell an engrossing battle yarn while doing a good job of filling in the broader strategic background from Pearl Harbor on, she also introduces Attu’s Indigenous Saskinax residents and discusses the enduring emotional cost on her father and other survivors. The book closes with encouragement to readers to look into their own family stories: “all of us are part of a legacy of love, resilience, recollection, and shared experience—part of an ongoing story that grows richer with every generation.”
Absorbing and enlightening fare. (author’s note, sources, index) (Nonfiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798225004361
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic Focus
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
A sincere, genuine, and uplifting book that affirms the importance of being true to yourself.
Middle school drama hits hard in this coming-of-age graphic memoir.
Natural competitor Misty has faced off against the boys for years, always coming out on top, but now they’re moving on without her into the land of full-contact football. Never one to back away from a challenge, Misty resolves to join the team and convinces her best friend, Bree, to join her. While Misty pours herself into practicing, obviously uninterested Bree—who was motivated more by getting to be around boys than doing sports—drifts toward popular queen bee Ava, creating an uneasy dynamic. Feeling estranged from Bree, Misty, who typically doesn’t think much about her appearance, tries to navigate seventh grade—even experimenting with a more traditionally feminine gender expression—while also mastering her newfound talent for tackling and facing hostility from some boys on the team. Readers with uncommon interests will relate to the theme of being the odd one out. Social exclusion and cutting remarks can be traumatic, so it’s therapeutic to see Misty begin to embrace her differences instead of trying to fit in with frenemies who don’t value her. The illustrations are alive with color and rich emotional details, pairing perfectly with the heartfelt storytelling. The husband-and-wife duo’s combined efforts will appeal to fans of Raina Telgemeier and Shannon Hale. Main characters present as White; some background characters read as Black.
A sincere, genuine, and uplifting book that affirms the importance of being true to yourself. (Graphic memoir. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-306469-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A rich and deeply felt slice of life.
Crafting fantasy worlds offers a budding middle school author relief and distraction from the real one in this graphic memoir debut.
Everyone in Tori’s life shows realistic mixes of vulnerability and self-knowledge while, equally realistically, seeming to be making it up as they go. At least, as she shuttles between angrily divorced parents—dad becoming steadily harder to reach, overstressed mom spectacularly incapable of reading her offspring—or drifts through one wearingly dull class after another, she has both vivacious bestie Taylor Lee and, promisingly, new classmate Nick as well as the (all-girl) heroic fantasy, complete with portals, crystal amulets, and evil enchantments, taking shape in her mind and on paper. The flow of school projects, sleepovers, heart-to-heart conversations with Taylor, and like incidents (including a scene involving Tori’s older brother, who is having a rough adolescence, that could be seen as domestic violence) turns to a tide of change as eighth grade winds down and brings unwelcome revelations about friends. At least the story remains as solace and, at the close, a sense that there are still chapters to come in both worlds. Working in a simple, expressive cartoon style reminiscent of Raina Telgemeier’s, Sharp captures facial and body language with easy naturalism. Most people in the spacious, tidily arranged panels are White; Taylor appears East Asian, and there is diversity in background characters.
A rich and deeply felt slice of life. (afterword, design notes) (Graphic memoir. 10-13)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53889-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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