School-based spooks backed by a strong social message.
Haunted by both middle school classmates and actual ghosts, a tween gets caught in a frightful situation.
Thirteen-year-old Riley Flynn, a sensitive, caring vegetarian, struggles to fit in at Northridge Middle School, where she is viciously bullied. Her social situation goes from bad to worse when her refusal to dissect a frog in science class prompts a jock classmate to cruelly prank her. The prank sets off a chain of events that ultimately land Riley locked in the science lab supply closet after school hours by some cruel girls. Riley escapes the closet only to discover she’s trapped inside the school. Her only companion is Max, the ghost of a dead man who has possessed the body of a half-dissected frog. Max warns of another, more dangerous ghost. Between mysterious messages, strange noises, and glimpses of memories that aren’t her own, can Riley survive the school’s haunted halls and make it out alive? Anderson’s latest carries a similar anti-bullying message to his Posted (2017), although packaged with creepy, ghoulish fare. The steadily paced narrative mixes Riley’s memories with present horrors, giving a periodic reprieve from chills and thrills. Overall, this ghost story is more character-driven than pulse-pounding. Its slowly unraveling central mystery presents a humanizing account of outcasts, the friends who betray them, and the trauma that follows. Riley and the majority of the cast are coded White.
School-based spooks backed by a strong social message. (Paranormal. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-298597-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
This debut is a treasure: a gift to every middle school girl who ever felt unpretty, unloved, and trapped by her...
In pursuit of her dreams, Vanessa becomes an unlikely contestant in her middle school’s first-ever pageant.
African-American eighth-grader Vanessa Martin is glued to the TV when Vanessa Williams is crowned the first black Miss America in 1983. Inspired, Vanessa imagines her own dreams coming true. Maybe she can rise above her painful family problems and dissatisfaction with her dark skin. Maybe she can escape her gang- and drug-plagued neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. But when the new music teacher, Mrs. Walton, who is white, encourages Vanessa to audition for the school’s first-ever pageant, she declines. She has an extraordinary singing voice but lacks the confidence to compete. When Mrs. Walton, Vanessa’s grandpa Pop Pop, and her cousin TJ join forces to get her to try out, she must face her fears—and the neighborhood mean girl—to have a shot at realizing her dreams. Vanessa’s compelling story unfolds through a combination of first-person narrative, diary entries, and well-crafted poems that perfectly capture the teen voice and perspective. From the first page, readers are drawn into Vanessa’s world, a place of poverty, abandonment, and secrets—and abiding love and care. The soundscape of early rap music helps bring the ’80s to life and amplifies Vanessa’s concerns about racism, friendship, family, and her future. Readers of all ages and backgrounds will cheer Vanessa on and see themselves in her story.
This debut is a treasure: a gift to every middle school girl who ever felt unpretty, unloved, and trapped by her circumstances. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-58089-777-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bold, extraordinary storytelling: not to be missed.
A crisis forces a talented young football player to consider what he values most.
Henson Blayze, an African American 13-year-old, is looking forward to football season—he’ll be joining the high school team despite still being in eighth grade. The entire town of Great Mountain, Mississippi, which is mostly white, is excited about Henson’s bringing them a championship win. Henson’s fifth grader friend, Menkah Jupiter, who’s like a little brother, is eager to see his idol in action. Townspeople make T-shirts and signs supporting their “Great Mountain Messiah.” At school, teachers and students fawn over Henson, offering him special favors, while his friend Flowell Bridges, a “hive of magnetic personality,” regales all who will listen with stories of Henson’s heroics. But Henson’s vineyard owner father is less enthusiastic—sports have “never been of grave importance” to him—and Henson’s longtime crush, Freida St. Louis, is more interested in social causes. The local news covers their first game—and Henson is outstanding from the beginning. But at halftime he learns that state troopers have badly beaten up Menkah, who’s been hospitalized, and he chooses to leave the game. Adulation quickly turns to fury when it becomes clear that Henson places justice above entertaining the town. Barnes has masterfully crafted a story that’s grounded in history and has fantastical elements woven into it. Henson is an irresistible lead surrounded by a strong supporting cast, and his story sheds light on the reality of racial dynamics.
Bold, extraordinary storytelling: not to be missed. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781984836755
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
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