A heartwarming and whimsical sequel.
Crushes, competition, and calamity ensue on a class camping trip.
Following on Nell of Gumbling: My Extremely Normal Fairy-Tale Life (2023), this cheery sequel follows ruddy, bespectacled Nell Starkeeper as she’s about to embark on an adventure with friends Thumbkin Gil, fairy Myra, human Leabelle, and unicorn-centaur Voila. The group is competing in the Multi-Disciplinary Wilderness Engagement Adventure, and the stakes are high, especially since Nell’s rival, Tony Pfluff, is also there. With his good looks, Romesh Roy, Nell’s group leader, immediately catches her eye, but her crush is tempered by his determination to win at all costs. The dynamics between the friends falter as unspoken crushes and resentments surge among them. When a misspoken wish upends Nell and the crew, communication and teamwork may be the only options that will save them. Steinkellner offers readers an alluring mix of Nell’s prose journal entries alternating with full-color comic panels; together they form a visually delightful page-turner. Though the story is rooted in a fantasy world, readers (especially those who appreciate the gentle angst of Raina Telgemeier’s and Judd Winick’s graphic novels) will find this volume utterly relatable; they’ll appreciate the young friends’ stumbles as they navigate their ways through life’s twists and turns. The cast is diverse, with queer characters, a range of skin tones, and a refreshingly realistic spectrum of body sizes.
A heartwarming and whimsical sequel. (annotated script, fun facts) (Graphic fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593570708
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Labyrinth Road
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short.
In the dystopian, totalitarian world of 2099, 14-year-old Tessa and her family are desperate to solve the mystery of her twin brother Theo’s disappearance.
Tessa is growing up in a time when playgrounds are historical relics, surveillance cameras are everywhere, music is outlawed, and owning books is illegal. Under the absolute rule of Zokiris, the decadeslong leader of her territory, people are heavily controlled. When Theo vanishes under mysterious circumstances and his name is erased from the Territory Statistics list, Tessa’s 135-year-old neighbor, Miriam, gives the family contraband books that become central to figuring out Theo’s whereabouts. Most books have long since been seized and stored away in Building 903; Tessa is intrigued by their presence in her home, while her mother is terrified. Lowry, the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Giver (1993), shines in her creation of uncomfortably believable dystopian societies. Tessa’s painfully limited world is fully imagined, with its own history, laws, and norms. Her relationship with her brother reads as realistic and tender and is crucial to the mystery. Miriam is the most strongly developed character: wise and independent, unafraid and hopeful. While the climb to the book’s climax is captivating, the hurried resolution is disappointing. The powerful messaging around the importance of literature and imagination certainly resonates, however. The main characters present white.
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short. (Dystopian. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780063515109
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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