A nice, short, feel-good story about finding your place.
A recent immigrant to the United States, Maci must find her place at a new school.
Twelve-year-old Mitsuko Masaki, now going by Maci because Mitsuko is “too hard for Americans to pronounce,” has recently moved to New York from Tokyo. All she wants to do is keep to herself and draw manga. After Maci refuses to do what her parents asked, they lay down the law: She isn’t allowed to sleep in her room until it is cleaned, and she must join the school orchestra. At school, Maci sits next to Amy, a white girl who introduces her to the comic club. During lunch, Maci usually sits, unnoticed, under the “weirdos” table, but Eli and Jayden, both boys of color, discover her and convince her to join the “above-table kids.” With new friends and the comic club, Maci begins to find her place at her new school. This short chapter book is one of a quartet about the weirdos. With themes of being the new kid, making friends, and finding where you fit in, it has an interest level for upper-elementary students, but the brevity, straightforward first-person voice, and occasional illustrations make it an easy read. Maci also works to find a balance between her Japanese culture and American culture, struggling to understand American phrases and to negotiate Japanese practices that now feel out of place, which will feel familiar to many kids in a new environment.
A nice, short, feel-good story about finding your place. (Fiction. 7-12)Pub Date: June 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5383-8208-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: West 44 Books
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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