A realistic, hopeful take on meeting challenges and making friends.
An aspiring biologist who’s bullied because of his disability finds friends when he enters a go-kart competition.
When middle schooler Milo Braverman enters a new after-school program in a new city, he braces himself for a new round of jokes, pity, and names like “bug-boy” and “cripple.” Milo, who walks with forearm crutches due to an unspecified congenital disability, cocoons himself in his field-guide sketchbook to avoid attention. But soon, some kids at The Club admire his sketches: Broadway musical aficionado Javi; accident-prone “Hurricane Addy;” artistic Noah; and Noah’s athletic sister, Zoe. In spite of himself, Milo gradually warms to them. When Miguel, the kindly director, announces the annual go-kart team rally, Milo is determined to race and prove he belongs. As the kids combine their various skills and endeavor to build an adapted go-kart in time for the rally, their enthusiasm feels natural, as does Milo’s anxiety. Obstacles arise, and Milo’s anger and mistrust sympathetically illustrate bullying’s lasting effects. Though a tad heavy-handed, Milo’s identification with a “brave” oak tree that “had overcome everything standing in its way” feels apropos; the optimistic, open ending implies that Milo’s growth, like the resilient oak’s, is an ongoing process that’s “hard, but not impossible.” Javi is from Guatemala; Milo and the other kids are ethnically ambiguous, though descriptions of Addy’s red hair, Noah’s “dreadlocks,” and Zoe’s braids will probably have readers imagining the former as white and the latter two as black. Nondescript, uncredited line drawings dot the margins.
A realistic, hopeful take on meeting challenges and making friends. (Fiction. 7-12)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5383-8238-7
Page Count: 90
Publisher: West 44 Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
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)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
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