Well-developed characters populate a heartwarming tale.
A foursome of rising seventh graders, three boys and one girl, are sentenced to summer school.
Three of them failed a Florida academic assessment test and the other has no scores since he was home-schooled and recently moved to the state. All share a love of the online game Sandbox that, á la Minecraft, promotes creative exploration. While playing, they feel successful and competent, unencumbered by their individual diagnoses of dysgraphia, dyslexia, ADHD, and dysfluency. Their teacher, Ms. J, continually reminds them that they are divergent learners, the kind of people who can change the world. The four strike a deal with her: In exchange for reading out loud in class, Ms. J will join them in playing Sandbox. Desperately wanting to connect with the kids, Ms. J procures computers for so-called typing practice—actually Sandbox chat—and the nontraditional learning begins. Each young character has an expansive life outside the classroom that affects their academic performance and self-image. In addition to loss, a shared feeling is frustration in trying hard and still not measuring up. Over time, the relationships they form change them all. The book takes on different formats representing the individual thinking patterns of the student narrators—free verse, stream-of-consciousness prose, and sketchnotes—along with school reports and chat logs, adding visual interest and reader appeal. The text provides few physical descriptions, but two characters are cued by name as Latinx.
Well-developed characters populate a heartwarming tale. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-8251-3
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
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A deceptively simple, tender tale in which respect, resilience, and hope triumph.
Generations of human and animal families grow and change, seen from the point of view of the red oak Wishing Tree that shelters them all.
Most trees are introverts at heart. So says Red, who is over 200 years old and should know. Not to mention that they have complicated relationships with humans. But this tree also has perspective on its animal friends and people who live within its purview—not just witnessing, but ultimately telling the tales of young people coming to this country alone or with family. An Irish woman named Maeve is the first, and a young 10-year-old Muslim girl named Samar is the most recent. Red becomes the repository for generations of wishes; this includes both observing Samar’s longing wish and sporting the hurtful word that another young person carves into their bark as a protest to Samar’s family’s presence. (Red is monoecious, they explain, with both male and female flowers.) Newbery medalist Applegate succeeds at interweaving an immigrant story with an animated natural world and having it all make sense. As Red observes, animals compete for resources just as humans do, and nature is not always pretty or fair or kind. This swiftly moving yet contemplative read is great for early middle grade, reluctant or tentative readers, or precocious younger students.
A deceptively simple, tender tale in which respect, resilience, and hope triumph. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-04322-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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