A thought-provoking take on illness, identity, and long-distance friendship.
A girl with cystic fibrosis forms a special bond with a dolphin.
Eleven-year-old Penny Rooney is thrilled when her teacher announces a poetry slam for sixth graders. However, the theme proves daunting: What does she know about herself? She knows she’s more than her CF, with its nebulizer treatments, digestive enzymes, and periodic hospitalizations. But sometimes it feels like she knows more about members of her close-knit family than herself and that she and best friend Cricket are practically the same person. When Cricket reveals she’s moving from North Carolina to Virginia, Penny can’t imagine who she’ll be without her. Her sadness eases when an ill dolphin unexpectedly swims into her backyard creek. To Penny’s amazement, she and the dolphin, whom she names Rose, can communicate telepathically. But Rose will soon have to rejoin her pod. How can Penny say goodbye to two best friends? In introspective free verse, Penny poignantly navigates an array of tough emotions, including the loneliness of being unable to meet peers with CF in person due to infection risks, the guilt of needing her family’s attention, and—notably—the pressure to repress her fear and anger because, as her doctors remind her, things could be worse. Readers navigating chronic illness will particularly appreciate Penny’s cathartic, empowering self-discovery. An author’s note explains that Baldwin herself has CF. The Rooneys read White by default.
A thought-provoking take on illness, identity, and long-distance friendship. (Verse novel. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-300644-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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
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