Ignore the lackluster title and cover. This one's a keeper.
A hardscrabble frontier girl finds happiness in hard work and compromise.
Jane Deming, age 11, has been single-handedly caring for her brother, Jer, since just after his birth two years ago. Papa died in the battle of Vicksburg; destitute, Jane's 22-year-old stepmother has been working 14-hour days in a mill to keep them. Asa Mercer's plan to take 700 single girls and widows from New England to a new town in Washington territory, Seattle, seems like a godsend. Mrs. D. wants to regain her lost girlhood and marry a banker. Jane hopes for school, playtime, and friends. After a four-month voyage, they're astonished to discover that Seattle is a foggy, rough-hewn frontier town—hardly a tropical paradise. With no money and no hope of employment, Jane's stepmother marries a frontiersman, Mr. Wright, who, while far from rich or handsome, does his best to listen to what his new family needs. While the main characters are all white, several characters in Seattle are either full or half Native American, specifically Duwamish, and they are portrayed with honesty and sympathy. Pragmatic, adaptable Jane learns to skin otters, build a canoe, and look for ways in which everyone can get a part of what they want. There's plenty of action, but the strength of the novel comes from its characterization, especially Jane’s, whose point of view becomes more reliable as she matures.
Ignore the lackluster title and cover. This one's a keeper. (Historical fiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6496-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Creative and hilarious.
Family, friends, and middle school are tough in ways this book intuitively gets and even celebrates.
At elite Benjamin Banneker College Prep in Denver, a new weeklong STEAMS competition—that is, science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, and sports—requires collaboration among teams of sixth through eighth graders. For Black seventh grader Frederick Douglass Zezzmer, losing is not even an option. His former professional football player dad has recently come back into his life with big sports-centric expectations for Doug. However, Doug intends to become the “World’s Greatest Inventor,” avoid summer sports camp, and legitimize his talents in his dad’s eyes. His nervous but optimistic best friend, Huey, is also part of comically named team TravLiUeyPadgeyZezz, a portmanteau of the students’ names. While Doug’s point of view is foremost, the novel’s narration shifts among many perspectives, giving a rich, panoramic view of how stressful yet ultimately rewarding these learning experiences are for the overachievers, the socially awkward, the kids with complicated home lives, and all those—young and old—who just need to see each other a little differently. The competition itself impressively brings readers into the week’s suspense while highlighting insights that many who have had to balance the demands of academics with the complexities of home life already know—and that Doug and his crew are finding out the hard way.
Creative and hilarious. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9781646143054
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A fine emotional stretch within reach of the intended audience.
When siblings Jessie and Evan (The Lemonade War, 2007, and The Lemonade Crime, 2011) accompany their mother on the time-honored midwinter holiday visit to their grandmother’s home in the mountains, the changes are alarming.
Fire damage to the house and Grandma’s inability to recognize Evan are as disquieting as the disappearance of the iron bell, hung long ago by their grandmother on Lowell Hill and traditionally rung at the New Year. Davies keeps a tight focus on the children: Points of view switch between Evan, with his empathetic and emotional approach to understanding his world, and Jessie, for whom routine is essential and change a puzzle to be worked out. When Grandma ventures out into the snow just before twilight, it is Evan who realizes the danger and manages to find a way to rescue her. Jessie, determined to solve the mystery of the missing bell, enlists the help of Grandma's young neighbor Maxwell, with his unusual habitual gestures and his surprising ability to solve jigsaw puzzles. She is unprepared, however, for the terror of seeing the neighbor boys preparing a mechanical torture device to tear a live frog to pieces. Each of the siblings brings a personal resilience and heroism to the resolution.
A fine emotional stretch within reach of the intended audience. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-56737-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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