A heart-wrenching read about a girl forced to grow up too quickly.
Franny Bishop’s life is built on worrying: She worries that Mom will relapse again and that they will have to move back to Memphis, “where all the bad memories live.”
Suppressing her anxiety is 12-year-old Franny’s specialty—to combat it, she religiously crosses daily goals off in her favorite purple planner. Drawing a line through each item helps her find a sense of peace, even if that means hiding in the bathroom at lunchtime and calling to check on her mother. When she’s assigned to sit at a table in math class with popular (and mean) cheerleader Sloan and basketball player and origami enthusiast Noah, Franny is pushed further outside of her comfort bubble. And when a car accident lands her mother in the hospital, upsetting the delicate balance they have achieved, even the support of Mimi, her mother’s Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, can’t stave off her panic attacks. Franny sees no choice but to take over one of her mother’s jobs cleaning houses, even if it means resorting to some ingenious strategies to pull off. This honest story invites readers into a realistic situation that many young people experience. It offers an accessible, welcoming, and introspective account of the struggles faced by those who worry about a loved one’s addiction. The well-developed relationships are a highlight. Noah is Black and has two moms in a community that is predominantly white and straight.
A heart-wrenching read about a girl forced to grow up too quickly. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781665905770
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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