Comedic fiction that celebrates strengths and reveals the challenges of living with neurodiversity.
Enter the world of a spirited, neurodiverse fifth grader with ADHD.
Queenie Jean Merriam, a precocious red-haired white girl, moved with her family to West Vancouver from a small town in Ontario. Her fresh start at her new private school starts off badly when her dad, trying to get stuck gum out of her hair, accidentally gives her a terrible haircut. Worse, Queenie keeps ending up in trouble, especially with the principal. Queenie impulsively talks out of turn, can’t control the volume of her voice, and struggles to fit in socially. Some wealthy mean girl classmates make things especially hard, but thankfully, two kind new friends help her navigate the school’s social dynamics and the upcoming mandatory speech competition. Queenie’s first-person voice, marked by rambling monologues and bursts of creative thinking, conveys her inner world and good intentions. Her narration includes misspelled emails and lists, which will be relatable to readers who have similar difficulties. Queenie’s parents support her patiently and with humor and help her navigate emotional outbursts, focus on her homework, and integrate herself into her new school. In the end, Queenie’s resilience is symbolized by her crossing a swinging bridge that she’s terrified of, foreshadowing her ability to overcome fear, stigma, and academic barriers. Short chapters and comedic moments make this an appealing read.
Comedic fiction that celebrates strengths and reveals the challenges of living with neurodiversity. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781772034790
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Heritage House Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
During a school year in which a gifted teacher who emphasizes personal responsibility among his fifth graders ends up in a coma from a thrown snowball, his students come to terms with their own issues and learn to be forgiving. Told in short chapters organized month-by-month in the voices of seven students, often describing the same incident from different viewpoints, this weaves together a variety of not-uncommon classroom characters and situations: the new kid, the trickster, the social bully, the super-bright and the disaffected; family clashes, divorce and death; an unwed mother whose long-ago actions haven't been forgotten in the small-town setting; class and experiential differences. Mr. Terupt engineers regular visits to the school’s special-needs classroom, changing some lives on both sides. A "Dollar Word" activity so appeals to Luke that he sprinkles them throughout his narrative all year. Danielle includes her regular prayers, and Anna never stops her hopeful matchmaking. No one is perfect in this feel-good story, but everyone benefits, including sentimentally inclined readers. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73882-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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