Light entertainment with some vocabulary enrichment for middle graders of all sorts.
When their history teacher disappears, students at the Pennybaker School for the Uniquely Gifted stage their own revolution and solve the mystery.
At this unconventional school, every student has an unusual talent and every class, a slightly off-kilter approach. In Pennybaker School Is Headed for Disaster (2017), new student and aspiring magician Thomas Fallgrout had trouble fitting in. Now his word-loving neighbor and best friend, Chip Mason, is a classmate and seems to be far more successful both academically and socially. Chip gets Thomas into trouble, he’s usurping Thomas’ privileges, and he’s stealing Thomas’ friends. Or, at least, that’s the way Thomas sees it, telling his story in an aggrieved first-person past tense. In school, a costume-loving history teacher has been replaced by a boring substitute who assigns essays. The new gym unit is co-ed dance, and Thomas has a scary partner. At home, his daredevil grandmother has been sneaking out at night through Thomas’ window; he discovers she’s been racing cars. These problems provide the humor, much of it distinctly middle-grade, involving such details as pantyhose and cowpies. But the heart of this account is the strain on the boys’ friendship, often seen in stories about girls but rarely about boys. Kissi’s black-and-white illustrations show Thomas as white and Chip as black.
Light entertainment with some vocabulary enrichment for middle graders of all sorts. (Fiction 8-12)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68119-176-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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