by Craig Robinson & Adam Mansbach ; illustrated by Keith Knight ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 2017
A fast and funny alternative to the Wimpy Kid.
Black sixth-grader Jake Liston can only play one song on the piano. He can’t read music very well, and he can’t improvise. So how did Jake get accepted to the Music and Art Academy? He faked it.
Alongside an eclectic group of academy classmates, and with advice from his best friend, Jake tries to fit in at a school where things like garbage sculpting and writing art reviews of bird poop splatter are the norm. All is well until Jake discovers that the end-of-the-semester talent show is only two weeks away, and Jake is short one very important thing…talent. Or is he? It’s up to Jake to either find the talent that lies within or embarrass himself in front of the entire school. Light and humorous, with Knight’s illustrations adding to the fun, Jake’s story will likely appeal to many middle-grade readers, especially those who might otherwise be reluctant to pick up a book. While the artsy antics may be over-the-top at times, this is a story about something that most preteens can relate to: the struggle to find your authentic self. And in a world filled with books about wanting to fit in with the athletically gifted supercliques, this novel unabashedly celebrates the artsy crowd in all of its quirky, creative glory.
A fast and funny alternative to the Wimpy Kid. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-52351-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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by Beth Vrabel ; illustrated by Paula Franco ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2020
Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud.
Eleven-year-old Nellie’s investigative reporting leads her to solve a mystery, start a newspaper, and learn key lessons about growing up.
Nellie’s voice is frank and often funny—and always full of information about newspapers. She tells readers of the first meeting of her newspaper club and then says, “But maybe I’m burying the lede…what Dad calls it when a reporter puts the most interesting part…in the middle or toward the end.” (This and other journalism vocabulary is formally defined in a closing glossary.) She backtracks to earlier that summer, when she and her mother were newly moved into a house next to her mother’s best friend in rural Bear Creek, Maine. Nellie explains that the newspaper that employed both of her parents in “the city” had folded soon after her father left for business in Asia. When Bear Creek Park gets closed due to mysterious, petty crimes, Nellie feels compelled to investigate. She feels closest to her dad when on the park’s swings, and she is more comfortable interviewing adults than befriending peers. Getting to know a plethora of characters through Nellie’s eyes is as much fun as watching Nellie blossom. Although astute readers will have guessed the park’s vandalizers, they are rewarded by observing Nellie’s fact-checking process. A late revelation about Nellie’s father does not significantly detract from this fully realized story of a young girl adjusting admirably to new circumstances. Nellie and her mother present white; secondary characters are diverse.
Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7624-9685-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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by Beth Vrabel
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by Gaston Leroux & Erik Forrest Jackson ; illustrated by Owen Richardson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2017
There’s no bones about it: young readers will get a taste of the classic in a fun and humerus way (wocka wocka).
The Muppets put a humorous spin on the classic tragedy The Phantom of the Opera.
The plot is much the same as the original, with Muppets filling in for the original characters. Vicomte Kermit de Chagny and Mademoiselle Piggy Daaé are the main characters and love interests in this tragic tale. As in the classic, Piggy Daaé rises as a star of the Paris Opera House due to training from an Angel of Music, who in this tale is a Koozebanian of Music from the planet Koozebane (or is he?). The main difference between this book and the classic (other than the cast) is the conglomeration of time periods, with a mix of details drawn from both the 21st and the 19th centuries. This may cause older readers mild confusion at first, but children will likely read without inhibition, as the experience of coming across names and objects they recognize and some things they may not is a familiar one. This puntastic tale is full of beloved faces, such as the grouchy pranksters Statler and Waldorf. As in many children’s stories, there is entertainment for older readers with abundant modern references, often found in footnotes, as in a tidbit about Beaker’s burial alongside Oscar Wilde, Molière, and Jim Morrison.
There’s no bones about it: young readers will get a taste of the classic in a fun and humerus way (wocka wocka). (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-451-53437-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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by The Brothers Grimm & Erik Forrest Jackson illustrated by Owen Richardson
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