A heady rush of girl power paced by the delights both of biking and bringing out the best in oneself and others.
Revelations, rescues, and family issues challenge 12-year-old Bicycle and her unusually gifted wheels.
Only a month after the life-changing cross-country spin detailed in The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle (2018), a chance encounter leads to new exploits for the pedal-pushing preteen—starting with the stunning discovery that she is one of a set of identical quintuplets. Having been misplaced years before and raised as a solitary foundling by clerics of the Mostly Silent Monastery and the Nearly Silent Nunnery, Bicycle (or, now, Euphemia) finds herself struggling with family life, particularly as her mom, already overprotective in the wake of losing one child, has turned even more helicopter-y. This becomes a problem when Bicycle’s beloved bike, Wheels of Fortune 713-J, which has enough features to give high-tech a whole new dimension, announces that four kindred two-wheelers developed by the same maverick inventor are about to be scrapped and need rescuing now. Fortunately, Bicycle’s sibs turn out to be kindred (if stifled) spirits who are used to working as a team, so the stage is set for a bumpy, exhilarating race against time and, ultimately, a liberating journey. Uss again assembles a cast of terrifically engaging human characters, mostly defaulting to White. Others are just as distinctly individual despite getting about on wheels or even, in the case of an enigmatic but surprisingly helpful tuxedo cat, paws.
A heady rush of girl power paced by the delights both of biking and bringing out the best in oneself and others. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8234-5087-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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