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WHERE THE WATERMELONS GROW

This story’s as sweet as Della’s daddy’s watermelons but never saccharine.

Della painfully learns she can’t fix her schizophrenic mother, but maybe the 12-year-old can heal herself.

It’s bad enough that her daddy’s watermelons, the sweetest in all of North Carolina, are in jeopardy because of disease and drought, now Della’s mama is acting “crazy” again, hearing voices that warn her to keep germs away from Della and her baby sister, Mylie. The preteen knows that her mother’s schizophrenia surfaced when she was born and blames herself for her mother’s condition. Della’s also heard stories, passed down through her small town, about the miraculous powers of the honey from Miss Tabitha‘s backyard hives. Della makes it her mission to cure her mama and is certain Miss Tabitha’s honey will do the trick. Her first-person narration is realistically earthy without crossing into gritty. The math-loving girl witnesses some of her mother’s breakdowns and assumes most of Mylie’s care, but she’s still very much a child, not yet ready for the boys and kissing she hears come with seventh grade. As her mother’s health fades, Della finds she has other strong women in her life, including Miss Lorena, who’s experienced her own tragic loss. As Della accepts that her mother will always be sick (though never “crazy” anymore, and the text makes the term’s harmfulness quite clear throughout), Miss Tabitha’s honey does work, giving this spunky girl the resilience to overcome hardship. This debut novel gushes with Southern charm and depicts a warm, compassionate community where white families like Della’s and Miss Tabitha’s live amicably alongside black families like Miss Lorena’s.

This story’s as sweet as Della’s daddy’s watermelons but never saccharine. (Fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: July 3, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-06-266586-7

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: April 24, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018

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SEVEN DEAD PIRATES

Piratical fun well-stocked with colorful cast members living and arrghh.

A new bedroom with seven high-spirited spirits! Just the place where shyness goes to die.

Thanks to smothering parents and a bullying classmate, young Lewis is such a skittish wreck that he’s unable to speak at all in school. An isolated tower room in Shornoway, a ramshackle seaside mansion that his family has inherited, seems like the perfect hideout—until, that is, he discovers that he’s sharing space with a boisterous, argumentative crew of pirates two centuries dead. Terror turns to cautious acceptance as he discovers that his ghostly roommates are captivated by tales of Capt. Hook and Long John Silver. Lewis also learns that if only they can be reunited with their old ship, now housed in the town museum, they will happily sail off for a fabled pirate haven. But for all their bluster and cutlass-waving, these sea dogs are leery of venturing out into the modern world. Their tendency to become visible when upset becomes an issue when one follows him to school. This and other incidents forcibly chip away at Lewis’ reserve, leaving him not only ready to lead the pirates publicly down to the museum, but to perform heroically when the ship turns out to have a rival spectral crew. Bailey endows Lewis with several scene-stealing allies (notably a fierce kindergartener) and leaves him confidently steering a course toward calm waters.

Piratical fun well-stocked with colorful cast members living and arrghh. (Fantasy. 10-12)

Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-77049-815-0

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Tundra Books

Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

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MUDDLE SCHOOL

Should help readers muddle through middle school themselves.

Follow Dave’s journey as he navigates his time as a new student in middle, er…Muddle School.

Dave’s family has just moved to Muddle and hope that this new environment will inspire their son to get better grades and find himself. Sadly, his mother’s attempts to help him make a good first impression lead him to wear a powder-blue leisure suit that quickly makes him the target of a trio of bullies. This account begins an autobiographical retelling of the author/artist’s time at a new school and how his increasingly positive attitude over the course of the year helped him to gain popularity and develop a core group of friends. The message isn’t too heavy-handed (although the theme is directly addressed by a studious friend), and readers will have a lot of laughs (often at Dave’s expense) along the way. The cartoon artwork, heavily lined in black and shaded in faded blues with Dave’s looser cartoons interspersed on faux lined paper, is amusing, but characterizations are not always visually consistent. The theme and the humor transcend this concern, however, and rabid fans of series such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid or The Popularity Papers will happily gobble this up. Dave, his family, and most of his classmates present White, though there are some characters of color, including Dave’s chief bully and Dave’s crush.

Should help readers muddle through middle school themselves. (Graphic historical fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-5253-0486-6

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Kids Can

Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021

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