An unsuccessful attempt to showcase the bridging power of friendship between cultures.
An unnamed upper-elementary–age Latinx girl meets an unnamed white girl on her first day at a new school, and an instant rapport is formed.
She watches her new best friend’s favorite TV programs; the blonde girl’s favorite book is now her own: “cross my heart and hope to die…now it’s my favorite book, too.” After the Latinx child invites her friend over for a special dinner, it is extremely awkward; the resulting embarrassment and anger make the child yearn to return to her country. She wonders, if her friend really doesn’t know her at all, what will happen to her if no one in the entire school understands her either? Yet despite the disaster, when she sees the blonde girl waiting for her in front of the school, she realizes that they are still best friends. Amado’s portrayal of the special bond between an immigrant and a white North American is disturbingly unbalanced. The new girl, presumably from Mexico due to Ruano’s illustrations highlighting Otomí folk art in her home, absorbs the friend’s interests without any reciprocity. The invited girl has trouble finishing her dinner. “But that was okay. You’d never eaten our kind of food before.” The blonde laughs when the Latinx girl and her father sing a song that reminds them of home. “That was so weird!” There appears to be no real communication throughout the story—almost the entire relationship is inside the Latinx protagonist’s head.
An unsuccessful attempt to showcase the bridging power of friendship between cultures. (Picture book. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-55498-939-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A contemplation on the magic of friendship told with sweetness, simplicity, and science.
A science-loving 11-year-old moves to a new neighborhood and entertains herself by making robots out of found objects while wishing for real friends.
Penny Rose Mooney, daughter of an entomologist and a banker, eventually finds a soul mate in neighbor Lark Hinkle, a bird-watcher and birdhouse maker. Penny struggles with social interactions in ways that are suggestive of high-functioning autism-spectrum challenges and keeps several notebooks, including her most secret one—Conversation Starters. The girls team up to make roboTown, a metropolis of lights and discarded items cleverly reused. Their newfound friendship is tested when Penny, a statewide science-competition winner, is asked to join the Secret Science Society, leading her to break a promise made in their joint proclamation agreement. The two main girl characters are white; race and ethnicity are less clear for the other characters. A key boy character is immature, poorly behaved, and ultimately ridiculed. Otherwise, however, picture-book author Crimi infuses this unassuming transitional novel with compassion, humor, and a refreshing storyline in which girls organically weave a love for science into their everyday lives. Illustrations by Luyken add to the guileless sensibility.
A contemplation on the magic of friendship told with sweetness, simplicity, and science. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9493-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Flimsily entertaining
An American schoolgirl in a British boarding school battles a secret society in this adventure.
In this trope-y sequel to The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane (2019), the students at Wellsworth must stay safe from the evil order that’s been there for generations and still entangles their parents. Emmy, a white, well-to-do Connecticut 12-year-old, is determined to return to Wellsworth even though last year she was nearly killed. The Order of Black Hollow Lane, the mysterious bad guys who are disguised as the school’s Latin Society, want something from Emmy. Her long-lost father, for one, and Emmy’s box of medallions, for another. Why? Do they really need a reason aside from being an evil club full of wickedness determined to find a whole box of MacGuffins that will somehow make them even richer and more powerful or at least propel the plot? In any case the dastardly fiends plague Emmy, framing one of her best friends for theft and leaving cryptic notes and computer files to threaten the lives of Emmy’s loved ones. Though the Order has infiltrated this (nearly all-white, wealthy) school for generations, Emmy must somehow defeat them and save her dad. The quest is peppered with spy-thriller moments that are mostly only thinly sketched and go nowhere, though some (such as a disguise right out of Scooby Doo cartoons) are funny enough to keep the action moving.
Flimsily entertaining . (Adventure. 9-11)Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-6467-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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