This series kickoff is a warmly satisfying and very useful exploration of coping strategies—and friendship.
Penelope wants things just-so in her life: crayons all the same height in the mug, books organized neatly, and teddy bears in a tidy row. If only getting along with her classmates were so manageable.
With a new girl joining her class, Penelope decides it’s time to make herself a best friend. Unfortunately, the white grade schooler doesn’t anticipate that Bob, as Brittany calls herself, won’t be anything like what she imagined her best friend would be. Surprised when all the other girls in her class rush to fawn over Bob, Penelope’s so frustrated that she has a gigantic, humiliating meltdown. It’s only after Oscar, a kindly and perceptive classmate that she’s previously discounted, gently eases her back into her dreadful day, and she later overhears Bob defending her outburst, that Penelope follows Grandpa George’s advice for coping—to just “go with the flow.” When that works well on an unplanned visit to Bob’s new house, she also discovers that the pair has much in common, promising a bright future. With brief text and black-and-white illustrations with informative captions (that depict a largely white cast), Perry sketches believable characters in familiar situations. One of the refreshing parts about this tale is that classmates pull back from bullying behavior, policing themselves when the situation seems ready to get out of hand.
This series kickoff is a warmly satisfying and very useful exploration of coping strategies—and friendship. (Fiction. 7-11)Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6602-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
A wild romp that champions making space for vulnerable creatures and each other.
A boy with ADHD explores nature and himself.
Eleven-year-old Jake Rizzi just wants to be seen as “normal”; he blames his brain for leading him into trouble and making him do things that annoy his peers and even his own parents. Case in point: He’s stuck spending a week in rural Oregon with an aunt he barely knows while his parents go on vacation. Jake’s reluctance changes as he learns about the town’s annual festival, during which locals search for a fabled turtle. But news of this possibly undiscovered species has spread. Although Aunt Hettle insists to Jake that it’s only folklore, the fame-hungry convene, sure that the Ruby-Backed Turtle is indeed real—just as Jake discovers is the case. Keeping its existence secret is critical to protecting the rare creature from a poacher and others with ill intentions. Readers will keep turning pages to find out how Jake and new friend Mia will foil the caricatured villains. Along the way, Bramucci packs in teachable moments around digital literacy, mindfulness, and ecological interdependence, along with the message that “the only way to protect the natural world is to love it.” Jake’s inner monologue elucidates the challenges and benefits of ADHD as well as practical coping strategies. Whether or not readers share Jake’s diagnosis, they’ll empathize with his insecurities. Jake and his family present white; Mia is Black, and names of secondary characters indicate some ethnic diversity.
A wild romp that champions making space for vulnerable creatures and each other. (Adventure. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781547607020
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Diverting and frequently funny.
A opossum in rigor mortis “catches” a dodgeball and inspires a fifth-grade math project.
Narrator Ella’s aversion to math and desire for order collide in a day of disasters: there’s a dead, rotting opossum on the way to school, an impending visit by an eccentric aunt with her pet dog, and a math-group project that will count for two test grades. Ella’s project buddies are her longtime best friends Lucille and Jolina. Souders has a pretty good feel for middle (or nearly) school academic and social interactions. The girls have an affectionate—or at least tolerant—understanding of one another’s quirks and foibles. They are teamed with a new student whose only fault is his name (Ella’s mother’s therapy for her intense arachnophobia is to think of every spider as “Jonathan,” summoning automatic shudders). The rest of the characters fade to background or are caricatures, like Ella’s French-immigrant classmate, Jean-Pierre, whose clunkily stereotyped exclamations seem time-warped: “Sacre bleu!” “Zut alors!” The several occasions of people—and the dog—spitting up or spitting out are goofily gross but clearly calculated to appeal to the target audience. And the dreadful smell of the opossum seems at odds with its condition of rigor mortis. However, the satisfactory conclusion—a teacher’s recognition of a hurdle cleared—is within readers’ reach.
Diverting and frequently funny. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63450-162-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
