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
Come for the mystery, stay for the backmatter.
This gentle, fast-paced mystery will hook readers with interesting details.
Julieta Leal, 9, is a magnet for disasters. She has a reputation at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, where both her parents work, for making trouble. Julieta is just trying to help, and it’s not her fault that sometimes things get broken or she has a hard time following the rules. When Julieta’s dad invites her along on a trip to Paris regarding the loan of some pieces from the Louvre, she jumps at the chance to add another purple pin to her family’s world-travel map. She promises to be helpful and stay out of trouble and desperately wants to shed her reputation of being a liability. This proves difficult when the dazzling Regent Diamond is stolen and Julieta and her dad are implicated in the theft. With her dad’s job in peril and the prized gem missing, Julieta must rely on her keen observations and tenacity to clear their names. Detailed descriptions of Paris landmarks and factual information about museum pieces are woven naturally into the fast-moving plot so that readers come away with knowledge of these topics alongside a satisfying story. Several pages of backmatter notes bolster the learning. The endearing Julieta is bilingual, and she and her family are Mexican American.
Come for the mystery, stay for the backmatter. (glossaries) (Mystery. 8-11)Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64379-046-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Tu Books
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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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