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SMALL SPACES

Name: SMALL SPACES
Author: Katherine Arden
ISBN: 978-0-525-51502-9

From the Small Spaces series , Vol. 1

by Katherine Arden ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 25, 2018

Chillingly tender.

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A girl steals a book and is swept up in its eerie origins.

It’s October in East Evansburg, Vermont, and Olivia “Ollie” Adler finds herself distracted from her sixth-grade lessons. She’s reeling from the pain of her mother’s absence, but she’d rather bottle it up than talk about it. Instead, Ollie escapes into books and reads them at her secret swimming hole. One day, a strange woman attempts to cast a book titled Small Spaces into the water. Ollie steals the book and is given a warning: “Avoid large places at night.…Keep to small.” Soon she is wrapped up in the book’s haunting story of loss and a deal made with a being known as “the smiling man.” A class field trip to Misty Valley Farm reveals the truth behind Small Spaces. Can Ollie save her classmates from the smiling man? Or will she, too, succumb to the lure of one of his bargains? The characters are sharply drawn, particularly Ollie and her quirky, bighearted father; one secondary character, black, Jamaican-born Brian, stands out in their mostly white community. The slow reveal of Ollie’s trauma is achingly poignant (her mother’s death isn’t confirmed until nearly halfway through the book). Some elements seem less plausible than others (her teacher leaving kids alone with a creepy bus driver, for instance), but novelist for adults Arden’s (The Bear and the Nightingale, 2017) middle-grade debut is atmospheric horror at its best.

Chillingly tender. (Horror. 8-13)

Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-525-51502-9

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER

- BOOK REVIEW
EMPTY SMILES
by Katherine Arden

- BOOK REVIEW
DARK WATERS
by Katherine Arden

- BOOK REVIEW
DEAD VOICES
by Katherine Arden

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THE WILD ROBOT PROTECTS

From the Wild Robot series , Vol. 3

by Peter Brown ; illustrated by Peter Brown ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2023

Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.

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Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.

When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.

Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023

ISBN: 9780316669412

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
CREEPY CRAYON!
by Aaron Reynolds ; illustrated by Peter Brown

- BOOK REVIEW
FRED GETS DRESSED
by Peter Brown ; illustrated by Peter Brown

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WILD ROBOT ESCAPES
by Peter Brown ; illustrated by Peter Brown

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HOLES

by Louis Sachar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...

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Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).

Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.

Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)