A thoughtful look at curse versus choice and an encouragement to youngsters to make their own paths.
Middle school years are hard enough without an actual curse ruining your life!
Sage knows this firsthand. Sage’s narration is plucky, if a bit one-note, through most of the story as she describes how the Contrarium Curse negatively affected her mother and Mrs. Petty when they were students, turning friends into adversaries. It’s preordained that Sage and schoolmate Priscilla Petty won’t get along. Priscilla makes fun of Sage, and she’s had more darts in her arsenal ever since Sage’s daddy was imprisoned for trying to rob a bank. Given a magic candle, Sage wishes for a reversal of the curse, but it doesn’t work as she had hoped. The consequences are disastrous, as expected. Magical thinking can’t hold a candle to the true solution, which includes forgiveness, reconciliation, and acts of kindness. These discoveries, as well as finding the courage to confront Daddy’s crime, allow Sage to grow. Primary characters seem to be default white, while some secondary characters are people of color. The feel-good ending satisfies, although Sage’s father’s appeal is realistically left pending.
A thoughtful look at curse versus choice and an encouragement to youngsters to make their own paths. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-265497-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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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