A lush backdrop and sweet characters facing complicated problems will keep readers hooked.
A balmy Florida summer turns unforgettable for two best friends.
Peter and Tommy have been inseparable since meeting a few summers back. Even though they go to different schools—Tommy attends a private school for gifted kids while Peter attends his local public school—the rising sixth graders have bonded over a mutual love for animals and a desire to explore. Leaving the safe familiarity of elementary school behind, Peter is facing a summer of changes and challenges as he prepares to enter middle school. Peter and Tommy’s two-member Discovery Club seeks to find and catalog 100 unique creatures before the summer draws to a close. Discovery No. 95, a manatee, sets a summer of courage and activism in motion. To complicate matters, Peter has also been tasked with being his grandfather’s caretaker while his mom is at work, something made more difficult by Papa’s rapidly progressing Alzheimer’s. Secrets test Tommy and Peter’s friendship, and a devastating accident for the manatee pushes Peter to his breaking point. Now he must find the strength to stand up for the manatees and fight for his friendship and family in the face of difficulties. Traditional masculine stereotypes are defied by a gentle, attentive friendship between two boys who are able to cry in front of each other. Main characters are assumed White.
A lush backdrop and sweet characters facing complicated problems will keep readers hooked. (author's note) (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-309491-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship.
A young tennis champion becomes the target of revenge.
In this sequel to Legacy and the Queen (2019), Legacy Petrin and her friends Javi and Pippa have returned to Legacy’s home province and the orphanage run by her father. With her friends’ help, she is in training to defend her championship when they discover that another player, operating under the protection of High Consul Silla, is presenting herself as Legacy. She is so convincing that the real Legacy is accused of being an imitation. False Legacy has become a hero to the masses, further strengthening Silla’s hold, and it becomes imperative to uncover and defeat her. If Legacy is to win again, she must play her imposter while disguised as someone else. Winning at tennis is not just about money and fame, but resisting Silla’s plans to send more young people into brutal mines with little hope of better lives. Legacy will have to overcome her fears and find the magic that allowed her to claim victory in the past. This story, with its elements of sports, fantasy, and social consciousness that highlight tensions between the powerful and those they prey upon, successfully continues the series conceived by late basketball superstar Bryant. As before, the tennis matches are depicted with pace and spirit. Legacy and Javi have brown skin; most other characters default to White.
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949520-19-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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