Filled with enough characters and plot for two novels, Yeh’s nimbly voiced, combination fish-out-of-water, personal...
When 12-year-old GiGi moves from a trailer park in South Carolina to an upscale community on Long Island, she decides to reinvent herself.
GiGi is short for Galileo Galilei, and her older sister and guardian, DiDi, a beautiful, uneducated hairdresser, has always encouraged her to reach for the stars. So when DiDi wins a million dollars in a bake-off, she moves them 800 miles north and enrolls GiGi in the ritzy Hill Prep. GiGi has always followed DiDi’s “Recipe for Success,” earning perfect grades by studying 150 percent. But GiGi longs for friends and fun, so she concocts a different recipe for herself, starting with a new name. Of course, not everyone in her swanky school is receptive to the girl with the hairdresser sister and Dollar Store shoes, and Yeh does a good job of making what could be clichéd characters, such as the snotty rich girl, come across as layered and original instead. The discovery of a surprising but credible family secret leads to a moving finish, though GiGi’s personality in this part of the story feels inconsistent. Many chapters end with a fun (food snobs beware) recipe from GiGi’s dead mother’s cookbook, featuring ingredients such as condensed soup or instant pudding mix.
Filled with enough characters and plot for two novels, Yeh’s nimbly voiced, combination fish-out-of-water, personal transformation and emotional family tale is also stuffed with charm. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-23662-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
This stands out for its unusual setting and smooth integration of friendship and family concerns. (Fiction. 10-14)
Sucked into "business" with a crooked classmate, bowling fanatic Lamar Washington makes good money faking his skills, but when a disruptive prank reveals his new friend Billy’s duplicity, he realizes how wrong it was to aim to be “the smoothest baddest dude” in Coffin, Ind.
This refreshing first novel is told in the first person with plenty of snappy dialogue by a smart African-American middle-schooler whose asthma has kept him out of the usual sports and whose older brother, a basketball star, consistently taunts him. Lamar’s new friendship threatens both a longstanding one and a promising new relationship with a girl. Tension mounts as Lamar is drawn further into an unsavory gambling world, realizing that his cheating is wrong but thrilled to have the cash to buy a Bubba Sanders bowling ball. A final, seriously physical fight with his brother leads to climactic arrests. The drab rigidity of Camp Turnaround, where Billy is incarcerated, contrasts with the excitement of the bowling alley Lamar loves. His grounding and community service seem appropriate. His understanding of the consequences of his prank fire alarm, both for his brother and for his basketball-mad small town, comes slowly and realistically, and the solution of his family issues is satisfying.
This stands out for its unusual setting and smooth integration of friendship and family concerns. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-199272-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
A coming-of-age story as tender and sweet as a summer evening breeze
Summer adventures begin when Bina accidentally locks herself out of her house in Larson’s newest middle-grade graphic novel.
The summer before eighth grade is a season of self-discovery for many 13-year-olds, including Bina, when her best friend heads off to soccer camp and leaves her alone to navigate a SoCal summer. Without athletic Austin around to steer the ship, Bina must pursue her own passions, such as discovering new bands and rocking out on her electric guitar. Unexpected friendships bloom, and new members are welcomed into her family. Though her sphere grows over the summer, friendship with Austin is strained when he returns, and Bina must learn to embrace the proverb to make new friends but keep the old. As her mother wisely observes, “you’re more you every day,” and by the end of summer Bina is more comfortable in her own skin and ready to rock eighth grade. Larson’s panels are superb at revealing emotional conflict, subtext, and humor within the deceptively simple third-person limited plot, allowing characters to grow and develop emotionally over only a few spreads. She also does a laudable job of depicting a diverse community for Bina to call home. Though Bina’s ethnicity is never overtly identified, her racial ambiguity lends greater universality to her story. (In the two-toned apricot, black, and white panels, Bina and her mother have the same black hair and gold skin, while her dad is white, as is Austin.)
A coming-of-age story as tender and sweet as a summer evening breeze . (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-30485-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
PROFILES
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
