A quiet story to spark conversation about conservation and community.
While fighting to conserve a grove of trees, a young girl discovers she’s put down roots in the community surrounding her.
When 12-year-old Holly arrives in a tiny Vermont town to stay with her uncle, she’s certain her itinerant actor father will tire of his current role (understudy for Woodland Sprite #4 in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and will soon uproot her yet again, so she vows to remain an uninvolved stranger. But it’s hard for tree-loving Holly to stay detached after she learns about a grove of endemic Arden trees that are threatened by the expansion of the town’s job-creating plastics factory. As Holly joins the fight for the grove, she realizes that trees aren’t the only ones that depend on the support of others, and that sometimes, found family can be just as important as biological relatives. Holly’s journey has a leisurely pace, and Holly is an introspective, quiet, and reflective protagonist. Her character is richly imagined, and she thrives with the support of a diverse, if rather one-dimensional, set of townsfolk. Holly and her uncle, who’s gay, read white. Adults may find more nostalgic delight in the whimsical town than young readers will, filled as it is with quaint shops and local artists. Readers seeking a title that touches on the environment, pollution, and the interconnectedness of life will find many educational moments woven into this gentle tale.
A quiet story to spark conversation about conservation and community. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 28, 2024
ISBN: 9780063287969
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
Affecting and hopeful.
A stray dog finds her destiny amid the chaos of a Southern California wildfire.
Wombat is a small dog with stubby legs and “silly ears / that look like furry cookies”—almost impossibly cute in Bricking’s occasional pencil-style vignettes. She’s mastered the art of survival, so when a mysterious internal voice prods her to go toward the fire, she resists. “The wrong way is the right way. / The right way is the wrong way,” the voice insists. When she tells fellow stray Silas about it, he tells Wombat she’s a “destiny dog,” bound to “find their person / before their person / can find them.” Convinced, she decides to follow the mysterious instructions. Meanwhile, Henry, a boy who’s leery of dogs, loves the bats at the wildlife rehabilitation center where Mama Ro, a veterinarian, works; his Mama J is a librarian. Henry and Barnabas, a fruit bat at the center, are both uprooted by the fire, and their paths converge with Wombat’s at an emergency shelter. The third-person perspective shifts from character to character in clusters of free-verse poems that fully immerse readers in each one’s experiences in turn. This extra-concentrated delivery of Applegate’s typically spare writing proves effective, balancing terror and sadness with heart and humor. Henry has light brown skin, Mama Ro has curly black hair and brown skin, and Mama J presents white.
Affecting and hopeful. (Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780063221178
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Storytide/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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