A cheery fantasy about making new friends, exploring new places, and learning to get along with your sister.
The first, utterly adorable book in a new chapter-book series.
Addie Gibson, a white girl in Bishop’s illustrations, is bored and lonely in her new home. During an exploration of the forest behind her house, Addie meets a colorful butterfly named Sky Dance; however, Sky Dance isn’t an everyday, nonmagical butterfly—she’s a Wishing Wing, and the entrance to her home, Wishing Wing Grove, is on the other side of the woods. Sky Dance and the Wishing Wings need Addie’s help. Someone has placed a dark enchantment on New Blooms—Wishing Wings who have just emerged from their chrysalides. The effects of the enchantment are unclear, except that it seems to cause New Blooms to forget both who they are and their mission: to spread the lightness of mind that is intrinsic to the butterfly spirit. New Blooms must grant a wish by sunset on their first day out of the chrysalis, or they lose their magic forever. Sky Dance’s newly emerged sister, Shimmer Leaf, is one of the cursed and suffers from this mysterious butterfly amnesia. The solution is easy: Addie’s little sister, Clara, could use some cheering up; perhaps human girl and butterfly can help each other help their sisters. The story concludes with the promise of more adventure. Life lessons hover dangerously between subtle and pedantic, but they lean slightly closer toward less is more.
A cheery fantasy about making new friends, exploring new places, and learning to get along with your sister. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68119-491-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading.
When Franklin School principal Mr. Boone announces a pet-show fundraiser, white third-grader Cody—whose lack of skill and interest in academics is matched by keen enthusiasm for and knowledge of animals—discovers his time to shine.
As with other books in this series, the children and adults are believable and well-rounded. Even the dialogue is natural—no small feat for a text easily accessible to intermediate readers. Character growth occurs, organically and believably. Students occasionally, humorously, show annoyance with teachers: “He made mad squinty eyes at Mrs. Molina, which fortunately she didn’t see.” Readers will be kept entertained by Cody’s various problems and the eventual solutions. His problems include needing to raise $10 to enter one of his nine pets in the show (he really wants to enter all of them), his troublesome dog Angus—“a dog who ate homework—actually, who ate everything and then threw up afterward”—struggles with homework, and grappling with his best friend’s apparently uncaring behavior toward a squirrel. Serious values and issues are explored with a light touch. The cheery pencil illustrations show the school’s racially diverse population as well as the memorable image of Mr. Boone wearing an elephant costume. A minor oddity: why does a child so immersed in animal facts call his male chicken a rooster but his female chickens chickens?
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-30223-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
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Lighthearted spook with a heaping side of silliness—and hair.
Fifth graders get into a hairy situation.
After an unnamed narrator’s full-page warning, readers dive right into a Wolver Hollow classroom. Mr. Noffler recounts the town legend about how, every Oct. 19, residents don fake mustaches and lock their doors. As the story goes, the late Bockius Beauregard was vaporized in an “unfortunate black powder incident,” but, somehow, his “magnificent mustache” survived to haunt the town. Once a year, the spectral ’stache searches for an exposed upper lip to rest upon. Is it real or superstition? Students Parker and Lucas—sole members of the Midnight Owl Detective Agency—decide to take the case and solve the mustache mystery. When they find that the book of legends they need for their research has been checked out from the library, they recruit the borrower: goth classmate Samantha von Oppelstein. Will the three of them be enough to take on the mustache and resolve its ghostly, unfinished business? Whether through ridiculous plot points or over-the-top descriptions, the comedy keeps coming in this first title in McGee’s new Night Frights series. A generous font and spacing make this quick-paced, 13-chapter story appealing to newly confident readers. Skaffa’s grayscale cartoon spot (and occasional full-page) illustrations help set the tone and accentuate the action. Though neither race or skin color is described in the text, images show Lucas and Samantha as light-skinned and Parker as dark-skinned.
Lighthearted spook with a heaping side of silliness—and hair. (maps) (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8089-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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