Skip the hall pass and take a hard pass on this middle school tale.
It was the biggest food fight in school history, but who’s to blame?
Suspect No. 1, Andrea, has a detailed life plan, the next step of which is winning the student body president’s race on the way to a position in Canada’s Parliament via Harvard and Yale. Ralph, suspect No. 2, is eager to make friends at his new school (his fifth in six years). And Joe, suspect No. 3, just wants to let a girl he likes know how he feels. Their alternating accounts of the lead-up to the fight tell the story in flashback. As part of her election campaign, Andrea sets up an anonymous advice app called Bossypants (just before the election she’ll reveal herself as the helpful adviser), but her tech help is not really on her side. Joe and Ralph both get messed-up advice, and misunderstanding leads to more misunderstanding…leads to the historic food fight. Will anyone get what they want or what they deserve? Sherman’s tale strains credulity from the beginning. The kids are realistic enough, and their narrative voices are distinct, but the logical hoops they are forced to jump through for the sake of gags and plot are completely unbelievable. No clueless young swain (or his family!) would believe he should woo a girl with pureed mussels and Coca-Cola–drizzled beets at lunch. The book adheres to the white default.
Skip the hall pass and take a hard pass on this middle school tale. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: April 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-55455-391-4
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
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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