A witty story full of humor, mystery, and friendship.
Best-selling YA author Moldavsky takes on organized crime at Marlowe Middle School in her middle-grade debut, a mystery series opener.
Seventh grader Maya Mendoza is a sharp-witted, self-declared detective in Hillside, New Jersey. When the school’s Contraband Closet is mysteriously emptied, Maya vows to crack the case. She tracks suspects and possible locations of the loot with the help of other kids sent to detention by Principal Spade: Ava Agarwal, Clementine Steffin-Paller, and Jordan Freeman. Jordan is Maya’s ex-bestie, and she hopes their shared investigation will mend their broken friendship. As she helps to uncover crooked kids and compromised adults, Maya embodies the flawed, disillusioned sleuth pursuing corruption and gangster-style crime—while also navigating a first crush, the ups and downs of tween social interactions, and the changes brought about by divorce. Maya and her crew take on an illegal card ring, nab a vandal, and get into (and out of) plenty of scrapes. Each member of their new club, the Bubblegum Shoes, brings a distinct skill set, setting up a rich cast for the next book. From the start, snappy dialogue and stylized narration channel classic film noir. While the evocative, staccato, early-20th-century-style cadence may at first be challenging for some readers to adjust to, the author delivers a fun, action-packed caper. The cover art and characters’ names suggest a diverse cast.
A witty story full of humor, mystery, and friendship. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780593813768
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
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
Poignant and heartwarming.
Zephyrina the cat, the “Robin Hood of felines,” rescues discarded toys so they can have new lives.
Zephyrina brings toys back to the apartment she shares with Elizaveta and her daughter, Dasha, refugees from war-torn Ukraine. Dasha reconditions Zephyrina’s rescues and sets them outside for three days, just in case they have owners who want to reclaim them. Afterward, they join the other toys in the parlor—the Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured. Dasha and Elizaveta don’t know that the toys are sentient. At midnight they abandon their rigid daytime postures to cavort and play, overseen by their leader, Pocket, a tiny mascot bear made to comfort soldiers during World War I. One night, Zephyrina brings back a dirty old bear, and Pocket is astounded. The new arrival, Berwon, might come from a lost shipment of the first-ever stuffed bears, sent from Germany to the U.S. in 1903—and if so, he’s worth a fortune. In the ensuing antics, the unpleasant villain Picky Vicky covets Berwon, and a kind museum curator does, too, but for different reasons. Applegate’s writing is exquisitely nuanced; she couches profound themes in accessible language that depicts relatable situations. Gentle, generous Elizaveta and Dasha poignantly underscore the human impact of wars. Santoso’s enchanting, delicate, black-and-white illustrations bring the timeless feeling of a classic to this hopeful, humanizing story of the distressed looking out for each other.
Poignant and heartwarming. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781250904362
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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