by Colleen Nelson ; illustrated by Tara Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 11, 2020
Another fine effort that wraps up some loose ends but also explores worthy new ground.
Austin, Maggie, and West Highland white terrier Harvey are all back for a second outing following Harvey Comes Home (2019).
Can Nelson follow her excellent debut for middle-grade readers with another fine effort? Last time, Austin found the missing Harvey but, desperate for a dog of his own, held on to him longer than he should have, leaving rightful owner Maggie with ambivalent feelings toward the middle schooler. Those have not gone away. Needing to do community service, she chooses the retirement home where Austin volunteers, not expecting to find two fast friends there: Austin, who turns out to be a kindred spirit, and Mrs. Fradette, a feisty elder. She tells Maggie tales from her challenging youth, crafting another story within a story, as in Harvey Comes Home. Surprisingly, since this seems at first to merely re-create the earlier novel, a fresh tale emerges. Maggie’s struggling to find a place all her own with her two BFFs, who seem to be pushing her away, and Mrs. Fradette tells of striving to find her right place—becoming an auto mechanic—as a youth in 1950, not a common story but eminently believable. Characters, likely the white default, are lovingly developed, resulting in a deeply engaging coming-of-age story. Anderson’s soft, pencil illustrations set up each chapter.
Another fine effort that wraps up some loose ends but also explores worthy new ground. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77278-114-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Pajama Press
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
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by Colleen Nelson ; illustrated by Tara Anderson
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by Bobbie Pyron ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2019
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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by Augusta Scattergood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2012
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl...
The closing of her favorite swimming pool opens 11-year-old Gloriana Hemphill’s eyes to the ugliness of racism in a small Mississippi town in 1964.
Glory can’t believe it… the Hanging Moss Community Pool is closing right before her July Fourth birthday. Not only that, she finds out the closure’s not for the claimed repairs needed, but so Negroes can’t swim there. Tensions have been building since “Freedom Workers” from the North started shaking up status quo, and Glory finds herself embroiled in it when her new, white friend from Ohio boldly drinks from the “Colored Only” fountain. The Hemphills’ African-American maid, Emma, a mother figure to Glory and her sister Jesslyn, tells her, “Don’t be worrying about what you can’t fix, Glory honey.” But Glory does, becoming an activist herself when she writes an indignant letter to the newspaper likening “hateful prejudice” to “dog doo” that makes her preacher papa proud. When she’s not saving the world, reading Nancy Drew or eating Dreamsicles, Glory shares the heartache of being the kid sister of a preoccupied teenager, friendship gone awry and the terrible cost of blabbing people’s secrets… mostly in a humorously sassy first-person voice.
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl who takes a stand. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-33180-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
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