A nice blend of life’s joys and challenges for today’s middle-grade readers.
A tween struggles to navigate friendship and family in a new community.
For 11-year-old Macy Weaver, finding and keeping a best friend is a tough task. She thinks she has it all worked out with Josie, but their connection ends abruptly, and Macy is facing spending summer vacation alone. The news that her mom wants to move them from South Carolina to Maryland so she can attend college seems like a fresh start for Macy’s friend search despite the strain it places on her dad. Their family dynamic is further complicated by Macy’s mom’s decision to live on campus during the week while Macy and her dad stay in a small apartment. Once school begins, Macy is on a friendship mission, but, convinced she is not enough as she is, she makes up stories that she thinks will make her more attractive. When that does not work, she plants a wedge between two friends that backfires. Macy is an entertaining character whose desperate need shows the importance of friendship as young people develop. The portrayal of Macy’s immature mom will resonate with readers as they come to understand that not everyone has perfect parents. The appealing cast of characters, pop-culture references, and lively pacing make this an engaging read. Macy and most of the cast are Black; one of her friends is Chinese and Black, and one uses they/them pronouns.
A nice blend of life’s joys and challenges for today’s middle-grade readers. (author's note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-46572-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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