A heartfelt ghost story with a promising setup, although the highs and lows work at cross purposes.
After being killed by a falling coconut, 12-year-old Finn finds himself in a spectral boarding school, where he joins other young ghosts yearning to revisit their families.
Virnig seems undecided as to whether to let her tale’s farcical elements take charge over its more poignant themes, and the sudden mood swings can be disorienting. Still, there’s plenty to snicker over at Phantom Academy, a “School for Underage Ghosts,” from gross but obligatory meals of ogre boogers and brown mush that “smells like rancid fish sautéed in dog poop” to animated wall paintings of a mysterious lady with a bushy mustache and a farting dragon (with a realistic rotten egg smell). From the moment he arrives, Finn, who’s cued white, sharply misses his beloved family. So, while learning the rules of ghostiness, often the hard way (yes, ghosts poop; no, they can’t walk through walls), he undertakes a determined search for a rumored portal back to the Land of the Living. In the end, Finn has second thoughts after interactions with a wise teacher suggest that his return might do more harm than good. But, considering how the author opens a floodgate for potential sequels by strewing this volume with tantalizing mysteries and exciting possibilities for ghostly explorations of both the spirit and earthly worlds, Finn’s future looks anything but dim.
A heartfelt ghost story with a promising setup, although the highs and lows work at cross purposes. (Supernatural. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781665980364
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
Slick sleuthing punctuated by action on the boards and insights into differences that matter—and those that don’t.
Brothers, one neurodivergent, team up to shoot baskets and find a thief.
With the coach spit-bellowing at him to play better or get out, basketball tryouts are such a disaster for 11-year-old Green that he pelts out of the gym—becoming the chief suspect to everyone except his fiercely protective older brother, Cedar, when a valuable ring vanishes from the coach’s office. Used to being misunderstood, Green is less affected by the assumption of his guilt than Cedar, whose violent reactions risk his suspension. Switching narrative duties in alternating first-person chapters, the brothers join forces to search for clues to the real thief—amassing notes, eliminating possibilities (only with reluctance does Green discard Ringwraiths from his exhaustive list of possible perps), and, on the way to an ingenious denouement, discovering several schoolmates and grown-ups who, like Cedar, see Green as his own unique self, not just another “special needs” kid. In an author’s note, King writes that he based his title characters on family members, adding an element of conviction to his portrayals of Green as a smart, unathletic tween with a wry sense of humor and of Cedar’s attachment to him as founded in real affection, not just duty. Ultimately, the author finds positive qualities to accentuate in most of the rest of the cast too, ending on a tide of apologies and fence-mendings. Cedar and Green default to White.
Slick sleuthing punctuated by action on the boards and insights into differences that matter—and those that don’t. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-261-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fade to black and cue the applause!
From Selznick’s ever-generative mind comes a uniquely inventive story told in text, sequential art and period photographs and film.
Orphaned Hugo survives secretly in a Parisian train station (circa 1930). Obsessed with reconstructing a broken automaton, Hugo is convinced that it will write a message from his father that will save his life. Caught stealing small mechanical repair parts from the station’s toy shop, Hugo’s life intersects with the elderly shop owner and his goddaughter, Isabelle. The children are drawn together in solving the linked mysteries of the automaton and the identity of the artist, illusionist and pioneer filmmaker, Georges Méliès, long believed dead. Discovering that Isabelle’s godfather is Méliès, the two resurrect his films, his reputation and assure Hugo’s future. Opening with cinematic immediacy, a series of drawings immerses readers in Hugo’s mysterious world. Exquisitely chosen art sequences are sometimes stopped moments, sometimes moments of intense action and emotion. The book, an homage to early filmmakers as dreammakers, is elegantly designed to resemble the flickering experience of silent film melodramas.
Fade to black and cue the applause! (notes, film credits) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-439-81378-6
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
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