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
A joyful celebration.
Families in a variety of configurations play, dance, and celebrate together.
The rhymed verse, based on a song from the Noodle Loaf children’s podcast, declares that “Families belong / Together like a puzzle / Different-sized people / One big snuggle.” The accompanying image shows an interracial couple of caregivers (one with brown skin and one pale) cuddling with a pajama-clad toddler with light brown skin and surrounded by two cats and a dog. Subsequent pages show a wide array of families with members of many different racial presentations engaging in bike and bus rides, indoor dance parties, and more. In some, readers see only one caregiver: a father or a grandparent, perhaps. One same-sex couple with two children in tow are expecting another child. Smart’s illustrations are playful and expressive, curating the most joyful moments of family life. The verse, punctuated by the word together, frequently set in oversized font, is gently inclusive at its best but may trip up readers with its irregular rhythms. The song that inspired the book can be found on the Noodle Loaf website.
A joyful celebration. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22276-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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
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