The entire collection brims with humor, pathos, and the heroic struggle to grow up.
In each of 10 stories, kids reentering the neighborhood from their school day reveal their unique narratives.
BFFs T.J. and Jasmine find their yearslong friendship getting them through parental separation, illness, and foster care. A group of four, all children of cancer survivors, has been brought together by a school counselor. A female skateboarder is the target of a bully—to the relief of his usual victim. A teen with the signs of OCD meets a street musician who changes her outlook. Two ardent gamers are caught up in the confusion of sexual questioning, and there’s an odd couple of friends whose difference in size is no barrier to their bond. A teen with a fear of dogs devises an elaborate plan to get past his neighbor’s new pet, and the class clown tries to find a way to make her overworked mother laugh. Three boys work to make their friend presentable enough to tell a classmate that he likes her. An accident sustained by the school crossing guard causes her son significant anxiety. There are connections among some of the stories: places, people, incidents. However, each story has its own center, and readers learn a great deal about each character in just a few lines. Reynolds’ gift for capturing the voices and humanity of urban teens is on full display. The cast adheres to a black default.
The entire collection brims with humor, pathos, and the heroic struggle to grow up. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3828-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
What do flowers remember? The stories of the people who cared for them, of course, as Wiersbitzky’s sensitive novel...
Thanks to her love of flowers, Delia has become a sort of apprentice to talented gardener Old Red and is devastated when he begins to show signs of encroaching dementia.
With all of the confidence of youth, she holds in her heart the belief that perhaps with her help—and that of all his loving neighbors—she can preserve his memories by collecting favorite stories about the beloved man. As she moves through the months, she records (in a rather mature first-person) both the tasks she completes in the garden as well as the stories she collects about him, also describing Red’s tragically inexorable decline. Delia’s surrounded by loving adults, and she shares her grief with best friend Mae and new love interest Tommy, as well as receiving support from members of her church; with these relationships, this warm effort neatly captures the strength of a close-knit community and the tight bonds that can form between the very old and the young. The 13-year-old’s often lyrical prose is attractive, even though it sometimes strays toward a more adult-sounding voice. Her frustration, fear and sense of loss will be readily recognizable to others who have experienced dementia in a loved one, and her story may provide some guidance on how to move down that rocky path toward acceptance and letting go.
What do flowers remember? The stories of the people who cared for them, of course, as Wiersbitzky’s sensitive novel compassionately conveys. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: May 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-60898-166-3
Page Count: 158
Publisher: Namelos
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Lacking the intensity of a sustained drive or the urgency of a fourth-and-long play, the story offers more the feeling of...
Wish fulfillment is the order of the day in Lupica’s latest.
Charlie “The Brain” Gaines has an uncanny knack with fantasy-football leagues. Though he lacks the skill to be a standout player on the field, when it comes to his favorite game, no one is a better strategist. No one. Including the professionals. So when Charlie’s best friend and football buddy, Anna, introduces him to her grandfather Joe Warren, Charlie can’t help sharing a bit of insight. You see, Joe Warren happens to own the local football team, the L.A. Bulldogs, and the Bulldogs happen to have a crummy record, and that means they happen to crave advice, even if it comes from a mediocre middle school football player. Lupica plays the “what if” game to posit the notion of a brilliant football mind trapped inside a youthful body. The ploy falls decidedly short, as Charlie’s level of football understanding and insight render him something of a savant. Charlie is far more at ease with football jargon than most middle-grade readers could hope to be.
Expert-level dissection of football mixes with the melodrama of a fatherless boy’s growing attachment to a team owner to contrive an uneven pace.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-399-25607-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
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