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ONCE YOU KNOW THIS

Name: ONCE YOU KNOW THIS
Author: Emily Blejwas
ISBN: 978-1-5247-0097-3

by Emily Blejwas ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 19, 2017

Hard to take but ultimately hopeful.

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Fifth-grader Brittany Kowalski looks for Plan B.

Home life is complicated for Brittany’s family, living in her mother’s abusive boyfriend’s house on Chicago’s struggling West Side. Her great-grandmother has all but disappeared into dementia. There’s hardly enough money for food for a growing 11-year-old and her baby brother, so her mother hasn’t been eating much. The brutish Jack appears and disappears, is bitingly critical, hits her mother, but won’t allow her to work. Blejwas sets her moving account of Brittany’s search for a better life in the depressing weather of late fall and early winter. Her first-person narrative doesn’t dwell on the abuse but on the details of living in poverty, such as taking the bus across town to get the makings of Thanksgiving dinner from a church food pantry. It’s cold in their apartment; people get sick; her great-grandmother dies. A bright (and warm) spot is school, where Mr. McInnis, an eager first-year teacher, pushes his mostly uncaring students and encourages them to imagine their futures. When frustrated by school rules, he looks for Plan B, providing a model. Brittany’s family is white; other major characters reflect the diversity of a big northern city. Sadly, some readers may know Brittany’s world well, others will find it surprising; all will appreciate the way Brittany’s actions propel the resolution.

Hard to take but ultimately hopeful. (Fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-5247-0097-3

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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CLUES TO THE UNIVERSE

by Christina Li ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2021

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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NUMBER THE STARS

by Lois Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1989

A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...

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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)