Kenzie describes a fantasy middle school life the way most girls wish it could be—amusing and fun but not quite plausible.
It’s just a tiny bit hard to feel sorry for Kenzie.
Ever since her mother died three years before, she’s been home-schooled, constantly traveling first-class with her busy dad. Now she gets to spend six weeks in one place, enrolled in a Las Vegas middle school. She throws herself into the experience, easily making friends, joining a club, running for student council vice president, and even ousting class diva Shelby for the lead role in the musical. She just doesn’t bother to tell anyone, even Ashia and Bren, who are especially kind, that she’s only there temporarily. After word finally gets out, many are annoyed at her failure to come clean, although Bren, an attractively developed, rather quirky boy, sticks solidly by her. Even though Kenzie struggles a bit after her secret is revealed, a neat fix effectively derails that conflict. Her father announces that they can remain permanently if she wishes, a decision she mulls over—while visiting Walt Disney World. Rather than feeling believable as plucky and a bit precocious, Kenzie seems to ride a magic carpet that elevates her above the true strife of middle school. With none of the protagonists physically described or much in the way of other ethnic or racial markers in Kenzie’s present-tense, first-person monologue, this Las Vegas school could just as well be anywhere.
Kenzie describes a fantasy middle school life the way most girls wish it could be—amusing and fun but not quite plausible. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9109-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
A real gem.
A 10-year old girl learns to adjust to a strange town, makes some fascinating friends, and fills the empty space in her heart thanks to a big old stray dog in this lyrical, moving, and enchanting book by a fresh new voice.
India Opal’s mama left when she was only three, and her father, “the preacher,” is absorbed in his own loss and in the work of his new ministry at the Open-Arms Baptist Church of Naomi [Florida]. Enter Winn-Dixie, a dog who “looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.” But, this dog had a grin “so big that it made him sneeze.” And, as Opal says, “It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humor.” Because of Winn-Dixie, Opal meets Miss Franny Block, an elderly lady whose papa built her a library of her own when she was just a little girl and she’s been the librarian ever since. Then, there’s nearly blind Gloria Dump, who hangs the empty bottle wreckage of her past from the mistake tree in her back yard. And, Otis, oh yes, Otis, whose music charms the gerbils, rabbits, snakes and lizards he’s let out of their cages in the pet store. Brush strokes of magical realism elevate this beyond a simple story of friendship to a well-crafted tale of community and fellowship, of sweetness, sorrow and hope. And, it’s funny, too.
A real gem. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-0776-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
SEEN & HEARD
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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