Funny, poignant, and reassuringly upbeat by the end but free of glib platitudes or easy answers.
Family troubles temporarily strand 10-year-old Sunny in a Florida retirement community. Imagine the recreational possibilities.
In the hands of the sibling creators of Babymouse and Squish, even a story inspired by troubling circumstances in their own mid-1970s childhoods offers hilarious turns aplenty. Instead of a trip to the shore with a friend, Sunny finds herself on a solo flight to stay with her genial grandfather—in a development where a trip to the post office is the day’s big outing, Walt Disney World is hours away, and her exposure to senior culture includes being fawned over by old ladies. Happily, there is one other child around: Buzz, a groundskeeper’s boy, who turns her on to superhero comics and joins her in starting up a moderately lucrative business recovering golf balls and residents’ (illegal) lost cats. Less happily, interspersed flashbacks reveal the reason for the sudden change of plans by tracking her older brother Dale’s increasingly erratic behavior and drug abuse, leading up to an intervention in the wake of a violent incident. Colored by Lark Pien in subdued hues that subtly reflect Sunny’s state of mind, the sequential panels present both storylines in a mix of terse labels, brief dialogue, and, particularly, silent, effective reaction shots.
Funny, poignant, and reassuringly upbeat by the end but free of glib platitudes or easy answers. (afterword) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-74165-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Superb storytelling.
When Bug’s traditional summer routine is shaken up, her entire life changes.
It’s 1987, and 10-year-old Beatrice “Bug” Contreras has a plan: spend her summer months with her brother, Danny, on Venice Beach as she has for the past two years. But when 14-year-old Danny—who has matured into the name Daniel—wants more time to himself, Bug learns she will be instead hanging out with 11-year-old Frankie, the nephew of Phillip, her mother’s best friend and their upstairs neighbor. Frankie, who is visiting from Ohio, is trans at a time before this identity was well understood and has not been treated with kindness or acceptance by his parents. Frankie and Bug become fascinated with trying to solve the case of the Midnight Marauder, a serial killer who has been striking in the area. When Phillip is attacked, ending up in the hospital, their investigation swivels, and the titular characters uncover a few untold family tales. Bug and Daniel’s late father was a professor from El Salvador with Indigenous ancestry who spoke Nahuatl as well as Spanish and English. Biracial identity is explored in part through the differences in the siblings’ physical appearances: Their mother is implied to be White, and Daniel—who resembles their father more than Bug does—experiences more overt racism and dives into an exploration of his Salvadoran heritage. Readers interested in complex emotional development and relationships will appreciate each character's subtle nuances.
Superb storytelling. (resources, author’s note) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8253-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Contrived at some points, polemic at others, but a stout defense of the right to read.
A shy fourth-grader leads the revolt when censors decimate her North Carolina school’s library.
In a tale that is dominated but not overwhelmed by its agenda, Gratz takes Amy Anne, a young black bibliophile, from the devastating discovery that her beloved From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler has been removed from the library at the behest of Mrs. Spencer, a despised classmate’s mom, to a qualified defense of intellectual freedom at a school board meeting: “Nobody has the right to tell you what books you can and can’t read except your parents.” Meanwhile, as more books vanish, Amy Anne sets up a secret lending library of banned titles in her locker—a ploy that eventually gets her briefly suspended by the same unsympathetic principal who fires the school’s doctorate-holding white librarian for defiantly inviting Dav Pilkey in for an author visit. Characters frequently serve as mouthpieces for either side, sometimes deadly serious and other times tongue-in-cheek (“I don’t know about you guys, but ever since I read Wait Till Helen Comes, I’ve been thinking about worshipping Satan”). Indeed, Amy Anne’s narrative is positively laced with real titles that have been banned or challenged and further enticing teasers for them.
Contrived at some points, polemic at others, but a stout defense of the right to read. (discussion guide) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8556-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Starscape/Tom Doherty
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
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