The young crime stoppers’ escapades will hold readers’ interest.
Kids join forces to protect the denizens of Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Insectarium from thieves and financial ruin.
Liberty Jacobs loves insects, though her fascination with them has earned her the nickname “Bug Girl” at school. Libs knows her entomologist father is seeking investors to help sustain the museum, situated in a rambling mansion, with a gift shop, coffee bar, workshare stations, and Libs and Dad’s apartment on the top floor. An odd overheard conversation between two men leaving the museum makes Libs believe they’re after the insectarium’s expensive specimens, including pink katydids and an endangered scorpion. But when police stakeouts fail to nab any criminals, Lib works with best friend Emmy Perez (who offers help via the phone from Florida) and popular, sporty, artistic (and surprisingly nice) classmate Cam Jones to foil the anticipated “buglary.” The trio draws inspiration from Home Alone, and the story offers plenty of suspects to consider. First-person narrator Libs, who’s cued white, inserts interesting factoids about the museum’s resident insects, tarantula, and even Kermit the iguana. She, Emmy, and Cam also navigate friendship and family expectations before the story wraps up with a neat conclusion. The cover art portrays Cam with dark skin; he’s thinly characterized as “good at everything. Great, actually,” and largely reads like a prop to support Libs’ development. Stock images showing butterflies, bees, beetles, ants, and other creatures are scattered throughout.
The young crime stoppers’ escapades will hold readers’ interest. (insectarium guide, author’s note) (Adventure. 8-12)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780310167921
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Affecting and hopeful.
A stray dog finds her destiny amid the chaos of a Southern California wildfire.
Wombat is a small dog with stubby legs and “silly ears / that look like furry cookies”—almost impossibly cute in Bricking’s occasional pencil-style vignettes. She’s mastered the art of survival, so when a mysterious internal voice prods her to go toward the fire, she resists. “The wrong way is the right way. / The right way is the wrong way,” the voice insists. When she tells fellow stray Silas about it, he tells Wombat she’s a “destiny dog,” bound to “find their person / before their person / can find them.” Convinced, she decides to follow the mysterious instructions. Meanwhile, Henry, a boy who’s leery of dogs, loves the bats at the wildlife rehabilitation center where Mama Ro, a veterinarian, works; his Mama J is a librarian. Henry and Barnabas, a fruit bat at the center, are both uprooted by the fire, and their paths converge with Wombat’s at an emergency shelter. The third-person perspective shifts from character to character in clusters of free-verse poems that fully immerse readers in each one’s experiences in turn. This extra-concentrated delivery of Applegate’s typically spare writing proves effective, balancing terror and sadness with heart and humor. Henry has light brown skin, Mama Ro has curly black hair and brown skin, and Mama J presents white.
Affecting and hopeful. (Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780063221178
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Storytide/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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