by Kate O'Shaughnessy ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2020
A rich and rewarding debut.
On a road trip to Nashville to sing in a competition judged by the father she’s never met, 11-year-old Maybelle Lane finds courage she didn’t know she had—and it’s contagious.
The panic-prone narrator’s mother warns her: “nothing good will come” from learning anything more about the father she’s only known as a radio voice. But when she hears about his role in the upcoming contest, she can’t resist signing up. Unexpectedly, her neighbor Mrs. Boggs agrees to drive her there from their trailer-park home in Louisiana. Mrs. Boggs is the strictest teacher in her school, but she has a heart. She even allows Tommy O’Brien, a detested classmate with a difficult home life, to come along after he stows away in the RV. These are well-developed, complex characters who all grow and change over the course of their road trip. The two children are white; Mrs. Boggs is an African American widow, still mourning her husband but strong in other ways. She addresses a stranger’s casual racism directly and quellingly, explaining to Maybelle: “If you’re going to control twenty wriggly eleven-year-olds, you better know how to command a room.” Lonely Maybelle is a budding musician who collects sounds on her old-fashioned tape recorder, labeling the collection she makes on their trip “the sound of happiness,” reflecting her growing maturity in the face of the mission’s mixed success.
A rich and rewarding debut. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9383-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
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by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney
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SEEN & HEARD
by Raina Telgemeier ; illustrated by Raina Telgemeier ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2016
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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by Raina Telgemeier ; illustrated by Raina Telgemeier
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