A humorous homage that will appeal to lovers of quirky friendship stories.
Inspired by The Baby-Sitters Club series by Ann M. Martin, three best friends start a babysitting business. Hijinks ensue.
In her middle-grade debut, Cala introduces readers to a new gang of best friends intent on making fast money by wrangling messy children. Malia (or “Alia,” according to her rebranding campaign) is a sporty girl with her sights set on throwing THE BEST joint birthday party ever with her two best friends, Bree and Dot. The only thing standing in their way is their lack of cash. Luck, or maybe fate (as Dot’s “yogi-slash-tarot-card-reader” mom might claim), leads Malia to a free copy of Kristy’s Great Idea—and inspiration strikes. It’s not all smooth sailing. At one point Malia rallies her friends by telling them “Dreams are everything in life! Without them, we’re just blobs with feet that go to school and do a bunch of stuff we don’t really want to do.” Thanks to witty banter, ample humor and excellent characterization, readers will enjoy following this group of young dreamers as they attempt to gain some independence in their preteen lives. Though at times the storytelling is a bit all over the place (the third-person narration alternates among the three), the characters are sincere and genuine. Cala delves into insecurities and worries that young readers will no doubt find familiar. Malia presents black and Dot presents white; “technically…half Jewish” Bree has “olive” skin and shiny black hair.
A humorous homage that will appeal to lovers of quirky friendship stories. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-85089-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Clumsy storytelling with a lesson: Adults must explicitly educate kids about hate groups.
A middle school eSports club brings the worst of video gaming’s subcultures into the classroom.
In poor, mostly White, mostly Christian Ironville, teacher Ms. B starts up an eSports club. The students compete in The Good War, a World War II shooter that pits Axis against Allies. A shifting point of view introduces the misfits who make up the Allies and one of the bullies who make up the Axis. Playacting Nazis creeps into the Axis team’s behavior; they wear red T-shirts with an SS–style lightning bolt and make Nazi salutes. In Ironville, lacking people of color and Jews, these seventh graders don’t understand their behavior isn’t funny. The worst bully, Crosby, meets a friendly older gamer on a Discord channel who feeds him Nazi, racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, misogynist hatred between bouts of gameplay. Crosby’s radicalization includes profoundly horrific real-world concepts, including an Adolf Hitler slogan and a White nationalist group that actively recruits online. Binaries abound. Explicit refutation of some of the more virulent garbage comes from the Ironville adults while intentional bigotry all originates from non-Ironvillians. None of these kids sees open bigotry at home, and Ms. B. takes it as a given that the eventual racism must have originated online. Tell-not-show narrative and the constantly shifting perspective distance readers from characters. Contemporary referents such as Twitch and Discord are welcome; sadly, they appear alongside rantings about “blue-pill snowflakes” and “Feminazis.”
Clumsy storytelling with a lesson: Adults must explicitly educate kids about hate groups. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30780-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
An artful, amusingly quirky tour of middle school angst.
“Dear weird toes / crooked nose, / stressed out, left out / freaked out / … / This party’s for you.”
Welcome to Bridger Middle School, home of the titular Pity Party. This grab bag of vignettes condenses a world of early adolescent anxieties and excitements into a single volume progressing at whirlwind pace. With the exception of the arc story entitled “The Voice,” each vignette introduces a new protagonist and problem. Here the mundane collides with the fantastical, real-world pathologies and privations made light of through magical realism and a healthy dose of Gen-Z hyperbole. An ill-treated loner wishes everyone who’s ever been unkind to her might feel what it is to be ugly—to disastrous effect; a thrift-store mood ring that never lies pushes a closeted gay boy to be true to himself. OCD spirals in the subway and harmful self-talk exist comfortably alongside a human chair, literal death by embarrassment (farting in class, oh, the humanity!), and social media followers dogging one’s every step. Not all segments resonate; the sickeningly saccharine Happy Head and Happy Friends ad spots and a too-blasé letter from the Department of Insecurity come off as a bit too self-aware while the simple, unapologetic absurdity of the ”choose your own catastrophe” misadventures invariably draw laughter but don’t quite fit with the rest of the story—though perhaps that’s the point. Swaab's illustrations offer suitably ironic visuals.
An artful, amusingly quirky tour of middle school angst. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-41736-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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