A heady romp, fun and scary in turn, with just deserts dealt all round.
Who could guess that making a 10-minute film would plunge a group of seventh graders into a whirl of dirty politics, in school and beyond?
Playing his latest largely for laughs, Markell stocks Saint Anselm’s Academy, a Brooklyn school for gifted students, with an entertaining array of moneyed fashionistas, budding social radicals, and other middle-grade archetypes—including the obsessed gamers from his The Game Masters of Garden Place (2018)—and inserts the customary gags about school lunches and teachers (hip or otherwise) amid plenty of rapid banter. Film studies may be nowhere near Alex Davis’ first choice for an elective, but being grouped with dazzling A-lister Priti Sharma and secretive superhacker Theo Schatten (a creepily pale new kid) to create a video contest entry transforms his dismay into enthusiasm…and then back to dismay when someone makes repeated attempts to destroy their work (a satiric mashup of a school tour and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). Why? As it turns out, an antagonistic teacher, an unscrupulous real estate tycoon, and a corrupt politician have their reasons. Overall, though the shenanigans add suspense, they play second fiddle to Alex’s experience of filmmaking as a mix of collaboration, compromise, and creativity, not to mention his getting schooled in local politics, cybercrime, and areas related to gender where he could be more self-aware. Alex reads as White; the supporting cast reflects the ethnic diversity of the setting.
A heady romp, fun and scary in turn, with just deserts dealt all round. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18066-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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