Especially apt for an election year.
Can the least popular kid in school beat the most popular in an election? Maybe, if the unpopular kid’s Boris Snodbuckle.
Seventh-graders Boris and Adrian, both white judging from the cover, are best friends. Dreamer Boris always has an operation in mind or in progress, and Adrian’s there to assist. The operations all have noble aims, but they don’t always go as planned—like the toy drive that netted almost nothing and the attempt to keep teachers from using Styrofoam cups that ended in the boys’ expulsion from the Environmental Club. When the friends hear that school bully Robert plans to become student-body president and make things worse at Bendale Public School for everyone except his buddies, Boris announces his candidacy (and Operation Save our School). Even though each campaign strategy backfires and ends in suspensions—or Robert getting the credit—dedicated and optimistic Boris keeps up the fight. Can they make headway without breaking their five-rule code? Adrian narrates Canadian Skuy’s story of friendship and politics. Boris’ martyr complex might turn off some (the final rule of the code is don’t squeal, which he follows to a fault), and Adrian’s florid descriptions, phrasing, and vocabulary are more college professor than smart seventh grader. However, those seeking a tale of faithful friendship and underdog success could do worse.
Especially apt for an election year. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77138-568-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Yasmin’s campaign should help inspire young readers to believe in their own potential to make a difference and teach the...
When her source of books is threatened, so is 9-year-old Yasmin’s goal of reading a book a day “forever.”
The inspiration behind and assistant to her in that goal is Book Uncle, owner of a free lending library on the street corner where she lives. His motto is to provide the “right book for the right person for the right day.” When Book Uncle is forced to shut down his lending library because he can’t afford the permit, Yasmin is disappointed and confused. She is then motivated to try and get the lending library back in business and enlists the help of her friends and then their larger neighborhood. All this happens amid a mayoral election, which provides the perfect background for the plot. Yasmin is a precocious, inquisitive protagonist with a tendency to speak before she thinks. Her relationships with her family and friends read as authentic and loving, even, and perhaps especially, in the moments when they are not perfect. This all lays the foundation for the community organizing that later becomes so necessary in effecting the change that Yasmin seeks to make. Swaney’s playful, childlike illustrations advance the action and help to bring Yasmin’s Indian city to life.
Yasmin’s campaign should help inspire young readers to believe in their own potential to make a difference and teach the valuable lesson that sometimes it takes several small actions to make big moves. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55498-808-2
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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