A fast, fun friendship tale filled with joie de vivre.
A young boy must save his quirky neighborhood from insidious forces of soul-sucking negativity in this lively middle-grade adventure from Williams.
Eleven-year-old Cody lives in West Adelfi, a neighborhood where weirdness is considered normal, and the various oddballs accept one another’s individuality. Cody’s dad is a bearded man-child skateboarder, his mum a heavily tattooed save-the-planet campaigner. Cody’s best friend, Zeke, has an obsessive-compulsive need to keep everyday items methodically arranged. Cody himself is a talented artist who draws comics with his older brother, Wyatt. Recently, however, Wyatt has grown distant. Cody, in turn, has become embarrassed to hang out with Zeke. He is eager instead to impress his new soccer friends from across the river. A shadowy darkness seeps into Cody’s drawings, reflecting both his inner turmoil and a menacing change that is spreading through the town. Masked shadow figures commit acts of vandalism. Shop owners are targeted. Most mysteriously, the latest reality TV phenomenon and its associated augmented-reality app have come to West Adelfi, afflicting residents with a hypnotic ennui. Can Cody embrace his sense of identity and keep the neighborhood from tearing itself apart? Williams, whose last book was The Rage (2019), writes from Cody’s perspective, crafting a free-flowing narrative very much in tune with West Adelfi’s peculiarities. The prose, simple but effective, focuses on storytelling and allows the cast room to breathe. Cody himself is a well-realized protagonist—relatively “normal” but with doubts, insecurities, and an incisive self-awareness. As per characters in some of the best middle-grade books, he and his friends at times show more maturity than the adults. Their personalities emerge through dialogue as well as action, their talk enlivened by inventive swear substitutes, like “bullhonky” and “boogersnarfs.” The self-acceptance moral is overt but not too heavy-handed. The sinister conditioning by the reality show evokes a chill similar to that of Gillian Cross’ Demon Headmaster novels. All told, young readers will embrace Cody’s world.
A fast, fun friendship tale filled with joie de vivre.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-7337386-4-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Regent Street Press
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share.
In this latest in the series, Little Blue Truck, driven by pal Toad, is challenged to a countryside race by Racer Red, a sleek, low-slung vehicle.
Blue agrees, and the race is on. Although the two start off “hood to hood / and wheel to wheel,” they switch positions often as they speed their way over dusty country roads. Blue’s farm friends follow along to share in the excitement and shout out encouragement; adult readers will have fun voicing the various animal sounds. Short rhyming verses on each page and several strategic page turns add drama to the narrative, but soft, mottled effects in the otherwise colorful illustrations keep the competition from becoming too intense. Racer Red crosses the finish line first, but Blue is a gracious loser, happy to have worked hard. That’s a new concept for Racer Red, who’s laser-focused on victory but takes Blue’s words (“win or lose, it’s fun to try!”) to heart—a revelation that may lead to worthwhile storytime discussions. When Blue’s farm animal friends hop into the truck for the ride home, Racer Red tags along and learns a second lesson, one about speed. “Fast is fun, / and slow is too, / as long as you’re / with friends.”
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063387843
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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