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
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
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