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
The depiction of the time is well done, and while the girls are caught up in the difficulties of adults, their resilience is...
A flight from New York to Oakland, Calif., to spend the summer of 1968 with the mother who abandoned Delphine and her two sisters was the easy part.
Once there, the negative things their grandmother had said about their mother, Cecile, seem true: She is uninterested in her daughters and secretive about her work and the mysterious men in black berets who visit. The sisters are sent off to a Black Panther day camp, where Delphine finds herself skeptical of the worldview of the militants while making the best of their situation. Delphine is the pitch-perfect older sister, wise beyond her years, an expert at handling her siblings: “Just like I know how to lift my sisters up, I also knew how to needle them just right.” Each girl has a distinct response to her motherless state, and Williams-Garcia provides details that make each characterization crystal clear.
The depiction of the time is well done, and while the girls are caught up in the difficulties of adults, their resilience is celebrated and energetically told with writing that snaps off the page. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-076088-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Deliciously dark and gripping.
Evie enters the otherworldly place called the Dark Sun Side, searching for Blight Harbor’s missing ghosts in this sequel to 2022’s The Clackity.
Twelve-year-old Evie Von Rathe returns, this time following the trail of missing ghost Florence and finding herself lured to the Dark Sun Side by ghoulish, evil Portia. Once there, Evie learns about the Radix, a swirling, black, oceanlike expanse of unforgiving magical power. In exchange for Evie’s return to the land of the living, Portia tasks her with retrieving the soul light from the center lantern of the Nighthouse. With the help of Bird, her tattooed sidekick who moves about her body at will, and a girl she meets on her journey named Lark, who is neither ghost nor human, Evie is pushed to her limits as she navigates this terrifying world on her important, soul-saving mission. Senf’s nightmarish, well-imagined supernatural landscape is original and compelling. Evie and Lark’s friendship is believably close and trusting, their shared pain and fear binding them together. Bird continues to be a scene-stealing companion, a necessary voice of reason and encouragement for Evie and readers alike. More than just a battle between good and supernatural evil, this story shows the ultimate power of empathy and tenacity. Readers will be left both satisfied by the ending and wanting more. Evie is cued white.
Deliciously dark and gripping. (Horror. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781665934633
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
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