An enjoyable start to a potentially engaging series for tweens.
In this middle-grade series starter, four friends embark on a challenging summer of training to save lives.
Thirteen-year-old Jenna Bowers and her family have deep roots on the Massachusetts cape, and water has always played a big role in her life. She dreams of winning an Olympic swimming medal, but although she relishes “the relaxation of the pace and rhythm, the feeling of power as I slice through the water,” a lifetime of emphasis on times, stats, and drills has dimmed her passion for the sport. Still, she’s intrigued by a poster announcing tryouts for the prestigious junior lifeguard crew—and by the handsome young man pinning it up. Her former babysitter, Molly Cruise, was a lifeguard, and she made the job look like fun. Could becoming a lifeguard herself be the very thing Jenna needs to reignite her motivation? With the help of her coach and, more reluctantly, her parents, she decides to try out, and she convinces her best friends, Piper Janssens, Selena Diaz, and Ziggy Bloom, to vie for slots too. Although one might expect the outcome of the test to be a foregone conclusion, Carey (The Callahan Cousins: Keeping Cool, 2015) delivers believable surprises. She vividly renders scenes depicting Jenna in the water and deftly handles the often tense dynamic between the town’s year-round residents and its summer incomers. She makes sure that all the girls are distinct characters, as well: Ziggy’s family lives close to the land, seemingly without any income; Selena’s are the Ecuadorian caretakers at one of the large estates; and Piper’s divorced parents work out of state, so she lives with her grandmother and tends horses. The girls’ friendship feels authentic, and their easily expressed affection and sensitivity to one another’s foibles should inspire readers. Carey also emphasizes the hard work involved in lifeguard training. This first installment plants numerous seeds for future stories, including the arrival of the glamorous, jet-setting Frankel sisters; a mystery surrounding Ziggy’s grandparents; and the jealousies that arise as the girls vie for the attentions of attractive boys on the junior lifeguard squad.
Pub Date: April 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9984997-4-1
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Dunemere Books
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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