Lyrical and emotionally complex, this coming-of-age tale explores “all the giant things and all the great things” about...
Foxlee’s (A Most Magical Girl, 2016, etc.) latest is true to its title.
Lenny Spink’s little brother, Davey, isn’t little. At 5 ½, he’s taller than Lenny, a third-grader—and he won’t stop growing. Her intuitive mother, “made almost entirely out of worries and magic” since her father abandoned them, is rapidly unraveling into pure worry. But when their mother wins them a set of Burrell’s Build-It-at-Home Encyclopedia, the siblings build fantastic futures as they learn about farting beetles, golden eagles, and Canada’s Great Bear Lake. From 1974 to 1977, their library grows, and Davey’s rare tumors worsen. Almost universally adored—and unbelievably cheerful through growing pains, excruciating headaches, and blindness—Davey is primarily a plot device, prompting others’ growth and kindness. The growing pains at the book’s heart are Lenny’s. Prickly, perceptive, and sympathetic, she eloquently narrates her conflicted longing for her father and the metamorphoses in her close bond with Davey. Lenny’s anger and “shame of being ashamed” of Davey will resonate with siblings of sick kids, and the rocky but fierce love between Lenny and her mother is heartening. Eclectic secondary characters provide support, including a boy with a birthmark and a stutter; Lenny’s convention-defying best friend; and a doting Hungarian babysitter. Lenny and her family and friends are white; her Ohio neighborhood is somewhat diverse.
Lyrical and emotionally complex, this coming-of-age tale explores “all the giant things and all the great things” about family and growing up—unfortunately, it’s done via the “angelic sick kid” trope. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7012-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch.
Basketball-playing twins find challenges to their relationship on and off the court as they cope with changes in their lives.
Josh Bell and his twin, Jordan, aka JB, are stars of their school basketball team. They are also successful students, since their educator mother will stand for nothing else. As the two middle schoolers move to a successful season, readers can see their differences despite the sibling connection. After all, Josh has dreadlocks and is quiet on court, and JB is bald and a trash talker. Their love of the sport comes from their father, who had also excelled in the game, though his championship was achieved overseas. Now, however, he does not have a job and seems to have health problems the parents do not fully divulge to the boys. The twins experience their first major rift when JB is attracted to a new girl in their school, and Josh finds himself without his brother. This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. Most interesting is the family dynamic that informs so much of the narrative, which always reveals, never tells. While Josh relates the story, readers get a full picture of major and minor players. The basketball action provides energy and rhythm for a moving story.
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch. (Verse fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-10771-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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