The familiar body-swap scenario gets a further magic twist in this comedic middle school fantasy.
Skylar Welshman is an outsider—the new kid in her seventh-grade class. When she tries out for the school play, a mortifying onstage incident earns her the nickname Belchman. If only Skylar could have her idol’s perfect life. Ruby Rivera is the star of the Disney-esque genie comedy series Ruby in the Lamp. Although Ruby has everything superstardom brings, however, she wants to trade in her designer wardrobe and millions of social media followers for textbooks and sleepovers. A fantastic turn of events leads to accidental body-switching courtesy of a real magic lamp. Initially, each girl thinks she’s hit the jackpot. Skylar can have the life of a beloved star, and Ruby gets to be a regular kid. But then reality creeps in. Skylar has to get used to public scrutiny of her every move, and Ruby must navigate the pitfalls of middle school. Is the grass really greener on the other side? While the premise isn’t exactly earthshakingly original, it’s still an appealing one, though Brody misses an opportunity by not interrogating the girls’ experiences as members of different races: Ruby is a brown-skinned, bicultural Latina (Mexican and Salvadoran), and Skylar is white. The narrative’s on the long side for a middle-grade novel, but each girl narrates in alternating chapters, maintaining a brisk pace.
Clichés and superficiality aside, a fun read for anyone who might wish they could be someone else for a little while. (Fantasy. 8-13)Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6971-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded.
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Tiny, sassy Bob the dog, friend of The One and Only Ivan (2012), returns to tell his tale.
Wisecracking Bob, who is a little bit Chihuahua among other things, now lives with his girl, Julia, and her parents. Happily, her father works at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary, the zoo where Bob’s two best friends, Ivan the gorilla and Ruby the elephant, live, so Bob gets to visit and catch up with them regularly. Due to an early betrayal, Bob doesn’t trust humans (most humans are good only for their thumbs); he fears he’s going soft living with Julia, and he’s certain he is a Bad Dog—as in “not a good representative of my species.” On a visit to the zoo with a storm threatening, Bob accidentally falls into the gorilla enclosure just as a tornado strikes. So that’s what it’s like to fly. In the storm’s aftermath, Bob proves to everyone (and finally himself) that there is a big heart in that tiny chest…and a brave one too. With this companion, Applegate picks up where her Newbery Medal winner left off, and fans will be overjoyed to ride along in the head of lovable, self-deprecating Bob on his storm-tossed adventure. His wry doggy observations and attitude are pitch perfect (augmented by the canine glossary and Castelao’s picture dictionary of dog postures found in the frontmatter). Gorilla Ivan described Julia as having straight, black hair in the previous title, and Castelao's illustrations in that volume showed her as pale-skinned. (Finished art not available for review.)
With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded. (afterword) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299131-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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