A moving story showing that even the smallest sparks of resistance can ignite change.
During World War II, a girl becomes embroiled with the French Resistance; in the present day, another girl investigates her story.
In November 1943, 13-year-old Marie Bonnet and her older sister, Héloise, are living alone in Nazi-occupied Paris. Their father was ordered to go work in Germany earlier that year, and their mother died long ago. When Marie discovers that Héloise has been working for the Resistance, she jumps at the chance to help too. She’s initially assigned small tasks, like leaving flyers on park benches, but her responsibilities soon escalate to transporting artwork to hide from the Nazis. In the contemporary timeline, Penny Marks has recently (and begrudgingly) moved with her family from Wisconsin to Paris for her art historian mother’s one-year teaching fellowship. While accompanying Mom to a work site where a mysterious painting has been found within a wall, Penny discovers and secretly takes a letter that’s hidden behind the plaster. She’s intrigued to discover that it alludes to Marie’s involvement in the Resistance, and she begins researching what happened. In alternating chapters, both white-presenting girls learn of the ripple effects that seemingly small actions can have. The parallel storylines are well-paced and engaging, although Penny’s arc incorporates multiple topics—defunding the arts, a terrorist attack, her brother’s health scare, friendship drama—that would have benefited from further development.
A moving story showing that even the smallest sparks of resistance can ignite change. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2026
ISBN: 9780063321786
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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SEEN & HEARD
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