A clever reveal highlights this appealing, Latino cast.
Three 12-year-old friends dedicate a summer to practicing the art of magic, but the real trick lies in dealing not simply with cards, but with their differences.
While stage magic frames the narrative, it’s the kids’ friendships and complex stories that propel the swiftly paced novel. Z, short for Ezio, is the youngest sibling in a big family with financial restraints, and whether at home or with friends, he consistently feels overlooked and underestimated. Dominic’s bright (or, as his friends say, a “know-it-all”) and a reader; he opts to focus on mentalism rather than card tricks, in part to understand his parents’ divorce and hostility. Only-child Loop (an accidental nickname for Guadalupe) has recently learned that his “dad” is not his biological father and feels betrayed by his family, especially his dad. It’s during their practice in the back room in the Conjuring Cat magic shop that they meet Mr. Garza, the owner, accountant, and skilled magician who coaches the trio to compete in the Texas Association of Magicians’ teen stage contest. López opens the short chapters with apt magicians’ terms (flash, heckler, cut, vanish) followed by their definitions, often foreshadowing action and brimming with double-entendres. As related in third-person chapters that rotate through the friends’ perspectives and feature believable dialogue, the friends’ obstacles are realistic and the finale is satisfying.
A clever reveal highlights this appealing, Latino cast. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-34087-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
A deeply imaginative journey that puts the “cat” in cathartic.
A loyal black kitten’s boy is under supernatural attack.
Eleven-month-old Nimbus loves Fletcher, the boy who nursed her back to health following life-threatening injuries. When Fletcher becomes curious about a strange jar and opens it, releasing a terrible goblin, loyal Nim protects Fletcher, taking heavy damage in the process. But Fletcher’s aunt, who’s caring for him over spring break, believes Nim attacked Fletcher and dumps her far from home. Rhett, a stylish rat with star quality, befriends injured Nim and leads her to a witch’s house. While the witch cares for Nim, the witch’s cats (maternal Fern, bookish Rochester, standoffish Bianca, and openly hostile Abraxas) teach Nim important cat skills. She also discovers she has a supernatural ability: In destroying one eye of the nightmare demon in the fight to protect Fletcher, Nim gained its “dream sight.” But she also learns it might come back for Fletcher, who no longer has Nim to protect him, posing a time-sensitive, high-stakes threat. Even though the witch’s home is nice and magic itself seems to be telling her to stay put, Nim wants to find a way back to Fletcher. As a hero, Nimbus is as gritty and determined as she is adorable. Tear-jerker moments explore pet abandonment—readers may want their own pets on hand to hug—all the way through the magical, action-packed finale. Fletcher and the witch read white.
A deeply imaginative journey that puts the “cat” in cathartic. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780062680372
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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