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STUCK

Compellingly conveys the experience of living with an invisible, stigmatized disability.

Moving and changing schools frequently has allowed fourth grader Austin to conceal his inability to read—and prevented him from getting help.

Austin’s a large kid (repeating second grade didn’t help): shy, socially awkward, but quietly observant. Changing schools isn’t easy, but he’s learned what to expect, what’s expected of him, and how to handle it. Initially unresponsive when Bertie—a small, friendly classmate—appoints herself his guide, he slowly warms to her and the school while hiding his inability to decode letters that wave and wobble across the page. His ingenious workarounds include querying the “phone lady” (digital assistant) on his mom’s old phone, who answers questions and gives him a link to the audiobook he’s supposed to read. At school Austin’s especially impressed by the Safety Squad, a select cadre of fifth graders. Bertie encourages him to join. But how can he complete the application without disclosing his disability? While self-contained Austin projects the stoic resignation of children who’ve learned not to depend on adults, his troubled mom never comes into focus; how she supports them and why they move so frequently go unexplained. The parameters of Austin’s disability (or disabilities) are unclear. If his backstory is frustratingly thin, however, Austin himself is a fully realized character whose predicament, true and false assumptions, and choices ring true from beginning to end. Characters mostly present White; naming conventions suggest a diverse classroom.

Compellingly conveys the experience of living with an invisible, stigmatized disability. (Fiction. 8-12)

Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-101-93294-0

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021

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WRECKING BALL

From the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series , Vol. 14

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.

The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.

When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Amulet/Abrams

Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019

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CHARLOTTE'S WEB

The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...

A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.

Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.

The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952

ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952

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