Readers will enjoy seeing how Karma navigates the complexities of adolescence, middle school, and the 17 hairs on her upper...
Everything has been so different this year for Karmajeet Khullar.
She is worried about starting middle school, about her dissolving relationship with her white best friend, Sara, and about Sara’s new friendship with mean girl Lacy, also white. At home, she misses her beloved Dadima, who recently passed away, as she confronts changing family dynamics, with her Sikh father now the stay-at-home parent, her white mother working way too many hours at her new job, and her surly 14-year-old brother rubbing everyone the wrong way. And worst of all, dark-haired Karma has no idea what to do about the 17 hairs she discovers on her upper lip just before the start of sixth grade—and now her classmates are teasing her about her mustache (“ ’Stache Attack!”). Could it be bad karma? Debut author Wientge has sensitive, anxious Karma confronting the universal preteen problems of self-esteem, bullying, and changing friendships, with everyday details of her interracial family’s Sikh faith and culture seamlessly woven in. Although the story meanders slightly, it articulates well the protagonist’s angst, insecurities, strength, and perseverance, along with the pressures she faces.
Readers will enjoy seeing how Karma navigates the complexities of adolescence, middle school, and the 17 hairs on her upper lip in this realistic and humorous story of new friendships and family support. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7770-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
This middle-grade read is heartfelt, but nostalgia that’s a bit too on the nose makes it hard to follow
Twelve-year-old aspiring astronaut Ebony-Grace Norfleet Freeman is lonely and homesick in New York.
When trouble hits her family like an asteroid, Ebony-Grace, aka Cadet E-Grace Starfleet, is forced to leave her beloved grandfather and her hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, to spend a week with her father in Harlem, New York—or as she calls it, “No Joke City.” Determined to ignore what she calls the “Sonic Boom,” New York’s hip-hop revolution in the early 1980s, Ebony-Grace rejects the people, music, and movements of Harlem, instead blasting off in her mind aboard the Mothership Uhura to save her grandfather, Capt. Fleet. Stuck, Ebony-Grace works to navigate a new frontier where she is teased and called “crazy” because of her imaginative intergalactic adventures. Ostracized as a flava-less, “plain ol’ ice cream sandwich! Chocolate on the outside, vanilla on the inside,” Ebony-Grace tries her best to be “regular and normal,” but her outer-space imaginings are the only things that keep her grounded. The design includes images that sho nuff bring the ’80s alive: comic-strip panels, inverted Star Wars scripting, and onomatopoeic graffiti-esque words. Unfortunately, these serve to interrupt an already-crowded narrative as readers hyperjump between Ebony-Grace’s imagination and the movement of life in the real world, transmitted via news reports and subway memorials.
This middle-grade read is heartfelt, but nostalgia that’s a bit too on the nose makes it hard to follow . (Historical fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-18735-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
A heartfelt tale with classy, indelible characters.
A new neighbor brings change and mystery to rising seventh grader Alberta Freeman-Price.
Despite the fact that Alberta and her dads are some of the small number of Black people in Ewing Beach, California, Alberta leads a pretty chill life, surfing and eating ice cream with her best friend, Laramie. Then the bed-and-breakfast across the street is taken over by new neighbors from New York, a Black single mom and her goth daughter, Edie. The fact that Edie is Black fuses the bond between the two. When Edie discovers mysterious journals in the attic of the B&B, she shares them with Alberta. The author of the journals was Constance, a young woman who apparently worked as a nanny in the building during the 1950s. The girls’ obsession with the journals combines with their emerging friendship to cause Alberta to feel torn between Laramie, who is White, and Edie. While Alberta and Edie juggle the awkward, sometimes-painful dynamics of middle school friendships, bullies, and racism, their research into the journals leads the girls to a discovery of family and racial dynamics that transcends time. Colbert’s middle-grade debut, centering Black girls who represent a range of experiences, deserves a standing ovation. Alberta’s narration is perceptive and accessible as she navigates race in America in the past and present.
A heartfelt tale with classy, indelible characters. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-45638-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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