Though much of this earnest effort reads like an after-school special, its portrayal of characters with rarely depicted...
Born without arms, white “problem-solving ninja” Aven Green can do almost anything with her feet instead—even solve a mystery.
“Now that I’m thirteen years old, I don’t need much help with anything. True story.” Aven’s adoptive parents have always encouraged her independence. She’s never felt self-conscious among her friends in Kansas, playing soccer and guitar and mischievously spinning wild yarns about losing her arms. But when her father suddenly gets a job managing Stagecoach Pass, a run-down theme park in Arizona, tales of alligator wrestling can’t stop her new classmates’ gawking. Making friends with Connor, a self-conscious white boy with Tourette’s syndrome, and Zion, a shy, overweight, black boy, allows her to blend in between them. Contrasted with the boys’ shyness, Aven’s tough love and occasional insensitivity provide a glimpse of how—and why—attitudes toward disability can vary. While investigating the park’s suspiciously absent owner, the kids discover clues with eerie ties to Aven. The mystery’s twist ending is somewhat fairy-tale–esque, but Connor’s Tourette’s support-group meetings and Aven’s witty, increasingly honest discussions of the pros and cons of “lack of armage” give the book excellent educational potential.
Though much of this earnest effort reads like an after-school special, its portrayal of characters with rarely depicted disabilities is informative, funny, and supportive. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4549-2345-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
An educational title that may appeal to young historians.
A middle schooler connects with the past and his present.
Amos Abernathy is a history buff. He loves working at the Living History Park in Apple Grove, Illinois, where volunteers reenact activities of daily life in the 19th century. Half the novel takes place in the latter months of 2021 (minus Covid) using the form of letters that Amos writes to Albert D.J. Cashier, a 19th-century trans man, in which he struggles through his crush on the closeted, but very cute, “Freaking Ben Oglevie.” The other half takes place over the course of one day in 2022 as Amos, who is White; his Black best friend, Chloe (a straight girl training as a blacksmith who has her own satisfying side plot); and others scheme their way into making the historical attraction more diverse and welcoming. The execution of the plot, which revolves around a stalled romance and kids planning a presentation, reads less as an organically unfolding story than an opportunity to investigate queer history, White privilege, and how to fail at allyship and then redeem yourself. Amos, who consistently names the identifiers of major and cameo characters alike, often feels more like a model for good behavior than a real 12- and then 13-year-old. Educators will wish that this was nonfiction with lesson plans; middle-grade audiences may yearn for more story and fewer lessons.
An educational title that may appeal to young historians. (author’s note, photos, bibliography) (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311986-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
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