A well-told comic tale with a feminist theme.
In this debut children’s chapter book, a girl who dreams of being the first astronaut on Mars gets help for her science fair project from a robot.
Although young Mia Marcotte loves to imagine exploring space, she doesn’t enjoy her science class, where her experiments often go wrong. She doesn’t feel inspired by the third grade science fair until she learns that the best projects “will go on a special field trip…to the space center!” It’s a field trip that the would-be astronaut doesn’t want to miss, so she tries to think of a good project in the three days she has left. Her first attempt doesn’t go well, and Mia’s “architect dad and accountant mom” may not be much help. But maybe her Aunt Serena will; she’s coming for a visit, and she’s an engineer. Serena’s boxes arrive first—and from one of them, a boy-sized intelligent robot emerges, calling himself Aizek. With his help, Mia builds a telescope modeled on Galileo’s. At the science fair, the project has some hitches, but Mia’s inspired by a teenage girl who’s a trainee astronaut. Wondering how such a young girl succeeded, Mia realizes “the simple answer. That girl persisted!” Mia, too, persists, fixing her telescope and achieving her goal. In her debut, Wald tells an amusing story with a series of comic predicaments and a wry narrative voice, as when Mia’s “forehead wrinkled as she tried to find a solution. But the more she tried, the messier her head became.” Aizek’s name appears to be a joking reference to author Isaac Asimov and his famous Three Laws of Robotics. But the story also offers serious messages about not giving up and the collective nature of success; Mia’s parrot and next-door neighbor contribute to her project, for example, and Mia helps Aizek develop imagination. Debut illustrator Caliskan’s black-and-white images are simple but varied and expressive, and depict diverse characters.
A well-told comic tale with a feminist theme.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-2-9568573-1-0
Page Count: 140
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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