This teen gossip columnist's fiction debut floats like a bubble in the breeze, despite plenty of traumatic events and sibling conflict. Off to Italy for ten days with little brother Matt and parents Marc and Miranda, Melanie fills up her diary with details of the long flight and subsequent jetlag. Encounters with new people (“Almost everyone here speaks Italian—even kids”) and food, visits to famous places (“The Leaning Tower of Pisa is soooo cooool”), family squabbles, and a chain of calamities, from running into one of her father's old flames on her parents’ anniversary and having to search—twice—for a missing Matt, to having a wallet stolen and needing a quick trip to the emergency room after a fall. All's well that ends well, heigh ho; Melanie returns to the States with new tastes for gelato and parmesan cheese, a greater willingness to appreciate people—even dorky classmate Norbert—and an unaffected poem that sums up her experiences. Sprinkled with exclamation points, pronounced Italian words (“piazza (Pee Ot Za)” etc) and small drawings, Melanie's journal will tease fans of the Eloise sequels and like travelogues into further armchair adventuring. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-80509-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000
Superb storytelling.
When Bug’s traditional summer routine is shaken up, her entire life changes.
It’s 1987, and 10-year-old Beatrice “Bug” Contreras has a plan: spend her summer months with her brother, Danny, on Venice Beach as she has for the past two years. But when 14-year-old Danny—who has matured into the name Daniel—wants more time to himself, Bug learns she will be instead hanging out with 11-year-old Frankie, the nephew of Phillip, her mother’s best friend and their upstairs neighbor. Frankie, who is visiting from Ohio, is trans at a time before this identity was well understood and has not been treated with kindness or acceptance by his parents. Frankie and Bug become fascinated with trying to solve the case of the Midnight Marauder, a serial killer who has been striking in the area. When Phillip is attacked, ending up in the hospital, their investigation swivels, and the titular characters uncover a few untold family tales. Bug and Daniel’s late father was a professor from El Salvador with Indigenous ancestry who spoke Nahuatl as well as Spanish and English. Biracial identity is explored in part through the differences in the siblings’ physical appearances: Their mother is implied to be White, and Daniel—who resembles their father more than Bug does—experiences more overt racism and dives into an exploration of his Salvadoran heritage. Readers interested in complex emotional development and relationships will appreciate each character's subtle nuances.
Superb storytelling. (resources, author’s note) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8253-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
PLB 0-517-70967-8 Me And My Family Tree (32 pp.; $13.00; PLB $14.99; May; 0-517-70966-X; PLB 0-517-70967-8): For children who are naturally curious about the people who care for them (most make inquiries into family relationships at an early age), Sweeney explains, with the assistance of a young narrator, the concept of a family tree. Photographs become understandable once the young girl learns the relationships among family members; she wonders what her own family tree will look like when she marries and has children. A larger message comes at the end of this story: not only does she have a family tree, but so does everyone in the world. Cable’s drawings clearly define the process of creating a family tree; she provides a blank tree so children can start on their own geneaology.(Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-517-70966-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
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