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A MILLION WAYS HOME

Name: A MILLION WAYS HOME
Author: Dianna Dorisi Winget
ISBN: 978-0-545-66706-7

by Dianna Dorisi Winget ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 26, 2014

All the pieces come together for an emotionally satisfying read.

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After the grandmother she has always lived with has a stroke, 12-year-old Poppy Parker faces tough tasks: She is asked to identify a murderer, and a dog she’s fallen in love with will be put down if she can’t prove its worth.

Poppy has never forgiven her parents for taking a job in Botswana and getting killed there. Her now-hospitalized grandmother is really the only parent she’s ever known. Through a series of bad decisions, the distraught girl becomes a vital witness in a murder case and is endangered because she told the armed robber her name. Detective Trey Brannigan removes her from the children’s shelter where she’s spent a week and a half and sends her to stay with his mother, Marti. Through her, she meets Carol, who runs the Spokane Animal Shelter, her wayward daughter, Lizzie, and Gunner, a German shepherd who bit a small boy. Angry Lizzie becomes a friend, and training Gunner gives Poppy something to do with her days while she waits, worrying about her Grandma Beth and whether she will be returned to the shelter if she helps the police capture the killer. There are harsh and scary moments and hard truths to be sad about in this modern family tale, but appropriately for the audience, it ends positively, both for dog and child.

All the pieces come together for an emotionally satisfying read. (Fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-545-66706-7

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: June 9, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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TUCK EVERLASTING

by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

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At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.

Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975

ISBN: 0312369816

Page Count: 164

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
TUCK EVERLASTING
by Natalie Babbitt ; adapted by K. Woodman-Maynard ; illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MOON OVER HIGH STREET
by Natalie Babbitt

- BOOK REVIEW
JACK PLANK TELLS TALES
by Natalie Babbitt

- SEEN & HEARD
Alexis Bledel To Read ‘Tuck Everlasting’ Audiobook

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CLUES TO THE UNIVERSE

by Christina Li ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2021

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.

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An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.

Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)