Clear and compelling.
Unfolding against the backdrop of the sweeping prairies of present-day Saskatchewan, the latest from Lindstrom (Anishinaabe/Métis) is a courageous tale exploring pivotal moments in Métis history.
Inspired by the events of the North-West Resistance of 1885, this stand-alone middle-grade novel continues the story of Rose, the free-spirited Métis girl from Lindstrom’s 2025 picture book, The Gift of the Great Buffalo. Twelve-year-old Rose is growing up in a small community near the South Saskatchewan River. She enjoys exploring the outdoors—rich in beauty and natural resources—with her best friend, Ambroise. She also longs to go moose hunting with her father and favorite uncle, Monook, something Ma considers too dangerous. When her dream comes true, it leads Rose to realize that bravery isn’t always about physical strength. This story honors the resistance of the Métis and First Nations people, who fought to protect their land, rights, and ways of life as the Canadian government expanded westward. When the government responds with force to a petition for Métis land rights, Rose’s world shifts. Many adults, Pa and Ma included, experienced dislocation following the Red River Resistance in Manitoba, and fear spreads as families flee for safety. The emotional stakes are high, and Rose’s journey is one of inner growth, emphasizing courage, resilience, and the power of identity in uncertain times. The vivid worldbuilding and lyrical yet accessible prose immerse readers in this novel, which is grounded in events from the author’s family history.
Clear and compelling. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781547612482
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style.
A summer vacation turns out to be anything but relaxing for Greg and a teeming horde of Heffleys.
Gramma declines the offer of a grand birthday celebration, saying that “what would make her REALLY happy is if everyone else went to Ruttyneck Island”—though she prepares individual packs of her legendary meatballs. (“You knew exactly how much Gramma likes you by how many meatballs you got.”) A gaggle of Heffley relatives and a dog stuff themselves into a small beach house, where overcrowding, personality conflicts, and simmering resentments become just some of the ingredients in a rolling boil of sitcom-style catastrophes, not to mention questionable decisions ranging from leaving the kids to make dinner unsupervised to labeling a cooler “HUMAN ORGANS” to keep random passersby from helping themselves. As usual, Greg supplies the setups in poker-faced journal entries interspersed with black-and-white drawings of slouched figures bearing frowny expressions of dismay or annoyance to cue the laffs. Gramma, it eventually turns out, not only (unsurprisingly) has plans of her own, but is also keeping a shocking secret about those meatballs. To go with the knee-slapping set pieces, Kinney slips in a tasty bit of family lore about how Greg’s parents met, plus droll takes on such low-hanging comedy fruit as restaurant manners, viciously competitive board games, and social media influencers (Greg being one, albeit with zero followers, and his Aunt Veronica’s little dog being another, with 3.8 million).
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781419766954
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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