A promising plot that plays Indian; readers looking for #ownvoices should paddle their pumpkins on.
A 12-year-old girl hopes to turn last year’s pumpkin-boat–race loss into a win, but revenge might ruin a friendship forever.
Billie and Sam’s friendship ended last summer when Sam beat her in Madeline Island’s annual pumpkin race. According to Billie, Sam cheated, and this summer he’ll pay. From pumpkin planting to race-day harvest, Billie’s bitterness grows. First she refuses to accept his help, then she ignores him completely. Billie’s grandmother admonishes her for this shameful behavior, but it takes a more serious event to lift Billie to forgiveness. The plot offers an appealing premise, and the story’s division into four summer-month sections makes for a quick read. Unfortunately, the cultural milieu comes across as unrooted. Billie’s “half Ojibwe from [her] mom’s side” with “red hair and green eyes” from her father’s Irish side, which is completely believable, and some Ojibwe words (italicized) and cultural touches are included. However, such phrases as “running wild” and “wild dancing” read as woefully unaware, and attempts at cultural scenes either surface skim in a manner reminiscent of diversity box-checking or are described through a naïve awe that reads as a white gaze. Additionally, attributing the Blackfoot word “Sinopa” as an Ojibwe name and incorrectly writing that “nitsidigo’i” is an Ojibwe word for “kneeldown bread” when both the word and the bread are Diné (a culturally and linguistically unrelated people 1,600-plus miles away) amplify readers’ sense of the author’s unfamiliarity with Native peoples.
A promising plot that plays Indian; readers looking for #ownvoices should paddle their pumpkins on. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6733-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
A realistic and deeply moving portrayal of a family’s journey through a challenging life transition.
A 12-year-old Chinese American girl learns to cope with grief, anxiety, and uncertainty in the wake of difficult life changes.
After Mo Lin’s stepfather leaves, her family moves in with her Uncle Ray in a new town. Having a depressed, overwhelmed, and emotionally absent mother means it’s up to Mo to take care of 5-year-old half sister CeCe and herself, even though she is grieving. What’s more, the kids at her new middle school are racist and hostile. Her sense of safety in tatters, Mo sees danger everywhere: Even something as mundane as a piece of toast might trigger a house fire. Most unsettling, Maudie the elephant, who died in a local circus fire years ago, keeps haunting her dreams. Mo finds allies in Uncle Ray, a gentle, perceptive man who shows her how music can provide solace; Nathaniel, a ghost-obsessed Jewish classmate; and Lavender, a Black librarian who opens her eyes to diverse, often overlooked stories from history. As Mo tries to determine what Maudie needs from her, she gains insights into the ghosts haunting her own family that must be laid to rest. Triggering past events in Mo’s life are revealed slowly, echoing her evolving ability to process them. The characterization is particularly strong; Mo displays a full range of emotions, from grief to anger, avoidance to acceptance. Her mother and Uncle Ray are fully fleshed, complex characters as well.
A realistic and deeply moving portrayal of a family’s journey through a challenging life transition. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781250797001
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
A fun coming-of-age romp.
When social misfit Frederick Frederickson rises to popularity due to a case of mistaken identity, he struggles to maintain the charade.
Even his friends see him as a loser, a flea among lions, but 10-year-old Frederick Frederickson is sure that he can overcome the pecking order of fifth grade, someday becoming “his true awesome self.” After a game of dodgeball goes wrong, Frederick can only hope that his family’s annual cruise will give him respite from school. But when a Category 5 hurricane cancels his vacation, Frederick is pushed to the limit and accepts a dare that sends him floating down a river without a paddle. Coming ashore at Camp Omigoshee, a disciplinary camp for boys, Frederick is mistaken for a camper whose bad reputation is infinitely cooler than his own. In his effort to keep up the facade, Frederick discovers that the other boys are also not what they seem. Beasley’s sophomore novel (Gertie’s Leap to Greatness, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki, 2016) is chock full of zany, nicknamed characters (Frederick shares a cabin with Nosebleed, Ant Bite, Specs, and the Professor) coming together in a story of friendship among boys. The boys’ races are not specified, though one character has an Indian name, and Santat depicts one as black and another as brown-skinned; Frederick is white. Readers will find it difficult not to compare this book to Louis Sachar’s more complex Holes, though depth is added with Frederick’s recognition of his economic privilege and questioning of the power his fake popularity gives him.
A fun coming-of-age romp. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-30263-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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