A realistic, poignant exploration of loss, friendship, and self-discovery with appeal to budding artists.
After her father’s death, an 11-year-old girl struggles to find her true self.
Georgia, the daughter of a famous artist, and her lifelong best friend, Theo, live in the same Upper West Side apartment building. Georgia and Theo used to draw with her father after school, but now Georgia’s unable to draw the way she wants. Increasingly resentful of the close relationship Theo had with her father, Georgia pulls away from their predictable friendship and becomes friends with a new girl at school. Expected to enter a citywide student art contest, she eschews tackling the required self-portrait. Discovering a drawing her father made of her before his death with markings suggesting he intended it to become part of an important series, Georgia keeps it secret. But when Theo finds the drawing and misguidedly submits it to the contest for her, Georgia must find a way to recover it, preserve her father’s legacy, and prove she’s more than just her dead father’s daughter. Georgia’s genuine, first-person narration exposes her loss, jealousy, guilt, and gradual realization that “all the different parts of me have been put back together in a new way.” Repeated use of the self-portrait device reinforces the self-awareness theme while relevant material on art and artists adds background depth. Main characters default to White; there is ethnic diversity in the supporting cast.
A realistic, poignant exploration of loss, friendship, and self-discovery with appeal to budding artists. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-302700-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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