Middle graders will shiver over this angst-y collection of school verses.
While the subjects and daily schedule may look familiar, the students at Monster School are a bit different.
Take Stevie, for example. He’s a zombie, and he’s always losing things. Sharp-eyed readers may be able to spy his homework—still at the end of his arm in the corner—or maybe his missing eye. And “multicultural” has a rather different connotation when trolls, elves, witches, and boggarts make up your family tree. But many of the topics Coombs writes about seem more like middle school probs than those of picture-book readers: a girl other students moon over, an introvert, a queen-bee mummy who secretly wishes to be a commoner so she could play, a nerdy “Computer Wizard,” hair care (the individual strands are snakes), and a poor “Ghost Girl’s Lament” (she cries in the coat closet from loneliness and failure to haunt anyone). Other poems are typical of school collections: a gross-out one about cafeteria food; one about baseball (albeit with a few extra obstacles—avoid the ghouls and don’t trip on tombstones); and the requisite poem about homework—when one is dead, there’s not much incentive for doing it. Gatlin’s illustrations play up the gross and macabre in the small details—monkey in the middle with a head for a ball—and he certainly can’t be said to fail at portraying diversity.
Middle graders will shiver over this angst-y collection of school verses. (Picture book/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2938-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Affecting and hopeful.
A stray dog finds her destiny amid the chaos of a Southern California wildfire.
Wombat is a small dog with stubby legs and “silly ears / that look like furry cookies”—almost impossibly cute in Bricking’s occasional pencil-style vignettes. She’s mastered the art of survival, so when a mysterious internal voice prods her to go toward the fire, she resists. “The wrong way is the right way. / The right way is the wrong way,” the voice insists. When she tells fellow stray Silas about it, he tells Wombat she’s a “destiny dog,” bound to “find their person / before their person / can find them.” Convinced, she decides to follow the mysterious instructions. Meanwhile, Henry, a boy who’s leery of dogs, loves the bats at the wildlife rehabilitation center where Mama Ro, a veterinarian, works; his Mama J is a librarian. Henry and Barnabas, a fruit bat at the center, are both uprooted by the fire, and their paths converge with Wombat’s at an emergency shelter. The third-person perspective shifts from character to character in clusters of free-verse poems that fully immerse readers in each one’s experiences in turn. This extra-concentrated delivery of Applegate’s typically spare writing proves effective, balancing terror and sadness with heart and humor. Henry has light brown skin, Mama Ro has curly black hair and brown skin, and Mama J presents white.
Affecting and hopeful. (Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780063221178
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Storytide/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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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