Thoroughly charming.
The course of time travel never does run smooth.
Federico, 11, lives luxuriously in Rome, an adored hostage of the pope. He models for the painter Raphael and watches Raphael’s rival, the great (but smelly!) Michelangelo, work on the Sistine Chapel. Lonely and bored, Federico discovers first a kitten, who becomes a cat after walking into a cupboard (designed by DaVinci), and then a man, who has come via the cupboard from 1920s New Jersey seeking artwork he can sell in his own time. Meanwhile, in the present day, 11-year-old Italian American Bee, whose mothers are art historians, is bored in New Jersey until she meets her neighbor Miss Bother (and that same cat), travels back in time, and meets Federico. Bee and Federico manage to colossally mess with history, leading to adventures as they try to get things back on track. Federico is the star of the show, his story filled with adventure and self-discovery, but Bee’s story offers an easy anchor for modern readers. Detailed writing brings the past to life in this delightful time-slip story populated by an array of outsized figures from history. This is an appealing read that will likely leave many readers eager to learn more about the art and artists of the Renaissance.
Thoroughly charming. (author's note) (Historical fantasy. 8-13)Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-301525-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
A refreshing adventure featuring family, friendship, and the power of creating new recipes.
Shad Hadid plans to learn everything about being an alchemist—if necromancers don’t get him first.
After things didn’t work out with his hostile stepfather and stepsiblings, Shad left Lebanon with his father and grandparents to start over in Maine. Since his father and grandfather were killed in a car crash, it’s been just him and Teta, his grandmother. Eleven-year-old Shad spends his time baking new concoctions, staring in the windows of the only Arabic bakery in town, and dodging his bully (and one-time friend), Sarah Decker, a White girl with xenophobic parents. When he stumbles into an alley behind the bakery that he shouldn’t have been able to see, Shad learns that he is descended from alchemists. Eager to learn more, he enrolls in the Alexandria Academy only to find that they dismiss alchemy. Even worse, Sarah and Yakoub, his menacing stepbrother, are also students there. Clearly, it will be up to Shad to restore the alchemists to greatness and to deliver the school from the clutches of necromancers who seek to discover the key to immortality. As Shad makes friends, confronts bullies, and learns how alchemy is like both baking and science, he grows and gains confidence in himself. Alexandria Academy offers a fresh take on magic schools with dark secrets, and Shad and his friends, most of whom are Middle Eastern and North African, are engaging.
A refreshing adventure featuring family, friendship, and the power of creating new recipes. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-309481-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A captivating novel about a boy whose story will leave readers wanting more.
Lymon, who has music in his bones, has too many strikes against him to make growing into young adulthood easy.
Readers met Lymon as an angry bully in Cline-Ransome’s Finding Langston (2018). At the outset of this companion, the African American boy lives in 1940s Mississippi with his loving, guitar-playing grandpops and ever disgruntled grandmother, called Ma. Lymon’s flighty teen mother, Daisy, abandoned him long ago when she moved to Chicago and started another family; Grady, Lymon’s father, is incarcerated at Parchman Farm. Like Langston’s, Lymon’s distinctive rural Southern voice narrates both painful and poignant moments in a matter-of-fact way that leaves readers wondering how he can bear so much without breaking. Though likable and worthy of compassion, Lymon seems to attract negativity. When Grandpops dies and Ma sickens from diabetes, the relatives can no longer afford Lymon’s upkeep. They send him to Chicago to live with Daisy, her two sons, and her husband, Robert, who beats Lymon regularly. When Lymon steals money from Robert, the police send him to a boys’ home—where, finally, he’s allowed to come into his own. Cline-Ransome’s masterful storytelling will keep readers enthralled while teaching them about historical racial biases in the penal system, the plight of children during the Great Migration, the discrimination faced by Northern Blacks, and more.
A captivating novel about a boy whose story will leave readers wanting more. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4442-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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