A nostalgic celebration of childhood and how it helps shape who we become.
In Lakeside, Illinois, generations of neighborhood kids have competed in an epic battle of capture the flag.
Fred Townsend and his family arrive in the summer of 1998. Fred moves often for his father’s job, and he dreads being the new kid again. When white-presenting Fred meets his neighbor Rusty, who appears Black, he’s pulled into the town’s capture the flag game—a tradition dating back to 1923. Intended to ease tensions between Uphill and Downhill, the two halves of town, it only made the rivalry stronger. Today, the game includes kings, castles, jails, and the nonpartisan rule enforcers the Council of Homeschool Kids. Fred joins Downhill amid chaos: King Mike was framed for spraying graffiti and banished. The new leader, King Raquel, must juggle winning with pressures to prove Mike’s innocence. Visually, the teams are worlds apart: Downhill players are portrayed in soothing earth tones with a faint golden glow, and the members have individual styles, while Uphill members, whose panels feature cooler tones, stick to matching button-down shirts and dark pants, and several are named Matt. The teams’ looks reflect their worldviews: Downhill values individual strengths, while Uphill depends on conformity and obedience. The racially diverse players on both teams feel real and complex, showing that people are more than just “good” or “bad.” Together, they realize winning isn’t about the flag—it’s about friendship and discovering one’s unique purpose.
A nostalgic celebration of childhood and how it helps shape who we become. (map) (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781665927154
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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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