Adventurous and exciting—and warm and fuzzy, too.
A robot-building genius named Zoe discovers that making friends is worth the risk of disappointment.
Zoe, a black girl with puffy hair and no tolerance for dresses, is a natural at building complex robots, but she has a hard time making friends. Once, a classmate coaxed her away from her robot to play outside. But Zoe overheard her telling others that they weren’t really friends, and Zoe has avoided peers and shunned the idea of companionship ever since. She is a fan of kaiju—monster movies—and no one knows that she spends her spare time in an abandoned amusement park building a giant robot from spare ride parts. One day, she finds a ring and puts it on, and later that day, a monster from her kaiju movies appears outside her house. Chomp becomes her friend, but his friends and family come after him, and Zoe must find a way to save the city from the horde of building-eating monsters. When she finally turns to her teachers and classmates at her Advanced School of Technology, she discovers that getting help and being friends may not be so bad. The illustrations are endearing, Eliopoulos taking advantage of the graphic-novel format for appropriately cinematic double takes and exaggeratedly funny reactions, and the story will keep readers giggling, gasping, and turning pages all the way to the thoroughly delightful end.
Adventurous and exciting—and warm and fuzzy, too. (Graphic fantasy. 6-11)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3124-5
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An exuberant portrayal of a girl with hearing restrictions reaching for the stars.
Astrid, a spunky, smart California third grader, has great aspirations.
She will become “the first astronaut with hearing aids,” a possibility that is treated very naturally within this story, the first in a new chapter book series. Joining the Shooting Stars, an after-school club devoted to all things space, has long been part of Astrid’s “Astronomically Grand Plan.” Though Astrid wants to go to space camp, it’s expensive, but a scholarship is available for the Shooting Stars student who earns the most points for completing the STEM-oriented Astro Missions. She discovers another problem when she realizes that her best friend, Hallie, is more interested in art than in STEM and joins the Petite Picassos club. How can Astrid navigate Shooting Stars without her BFF, especially when she and her teammate Veejay don’t start out well? Club teacher Ms. Ruiz stresses creativity and partnership, and math and science enthusiasts will be attracted to this book, but the real emphasis is on relationships. Astrid must befriend Hallie again after voicing her disappointment with her interests and learn to be a good teammate. Astrid is likable, and her story, told in first person, realistically explores her hearing issues, her initial problem-solving failures, and her successes. Black-and-white illustrations depict Astrid (wearing her hearing aids) and her family as light-skinned, though other students appear to be racially diverse, and Hallie is cued as Asian.
An exuberant portrayal of a girl with hearing restrictions reaching for the stars. (Chapter book. 7-10)Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8148-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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