This biracial, LGBTQ protagonist seamlessly shifts from comics to prose in a winner of a series opener.
Girl detective Goldie Vance moves from graphic novels to middle-grade prose.
Crossed Palms Resort valet and permanent resident Goldie Vance is a hopeful apprentice detective waiting for a big break. When movie star Delphine “the Temptress of the Ocean” Lucerne comes to Goldie’s decidedly unglamorous Florida town to shoot a film, her arrival is soon followed by a theft—the 10-pound, diamond-laden swim cap made for Delphine’s character in the film. What makes this complicated for Goldie is that clues seem to be pointing toward her mother as the culprit. But that can’t be true. Now Goldie has two tasks, not just one: find the swim cap and clear her mother’s name. Rivera’s novel for teens Dealing in Dreams (2019) was filled with creative, believable, and consistent slang and jargon; here she shows herself to be skilled at combining noir language conventions with contemporary sensibilities in a way that doesn’t feel anachronistic but is just a gas! Like Nancy Drew, brown-skinned Goldie is a teen girl, but her adventure really is entertaining and accessible for all ages—without the wooden characters or racism of the Carolyn Keene classics and with a little insertion of comics courtesy of Power to remind us where she came from.
This biracial, LGBTQ protagonist seamlessly shifts from comics to prose in a winner of a series opener. (Mystery. 10-16)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-45664-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
An engrossing, humorous, and vitally important graphic novel that should be required reading in every middle school in...
Jordan Banks takes readers down the rabbit hole and into his mostly white prep school in this heartbreakingly accurate middle-grade tale of race, class, microaggressions, and the quest for self-identity.
He may be the new kid, but as an African-American boy from Washington Heights, that stigma entails so much more than getting lost on the way to homeroom. Riverdale Academy Day School, located at the opposite end of Manhattan, is a world away, and Jordan finds himself a stranger in a foreign land, where pink clothing is called salmon, white administrators mistake a veteran African-American teacher for the football coach, and white classmates ape African-American Vernacular English to make themselves sound cool. Jordan’s a gifted artist, and his drawings blend with the narrative to give readers a full sense of his two worlds and his methods of coping with existing in between. Craft skillfully employs the graphic-novel format to its full advantage, giving his readers a delightful and authentic cast of characters who, along with New York itself, pop off the page with vibrancy and nuance. Shrinking Jordan to ant-sized proportions upon his entering the school cafeteria, for instance, transforms the lunchroom into a grotesque Wonderland in which his lack of social standing becomes visually arresting and viscerally uncomfortable.
An engrossing, humorous, and vitally important graphic novel that should be required reading in every middle school in America. (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-269120-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls.
Three young ghost trappers take on deadly wraiths and solve an old murder case in the bargain to kick off Stroud’s new post-Bartimaeus series.
Narrator Lucy Carlyle hopes to put her unusual sensitivity to supernatural sounds to good use by joining Lockwood & Co.—one of several firms that have risen to cope with the serious ghost Problem that has afflicted England in recent years. As its third member, she teams with glib, ambitious Anthony Lockwood and slovenly-but-capable scholar George Cubbins to entrap malign spirits for hire. The work is fraught with peril, not only because a ghost’s merest touch is generally fatal, but also, as it turns out, as none of the three is particularly good at careful planning and preparation. All are, however, resourceful and quick on their feet, which stands them in good stead when they inadvertently set fire to a house while discovering a murder victim’s desiccated corpse. It comes in handy again when they later rashly agree to clear Combe Carey Hall, renowned for centuries of sudden deaths and regarded as one of England’s most haunted manors. Despite being well-stocked with scream-worthy ghastlies, this lively opener makes a light alternative for readers who find the likes of Joseph Delaney’s Last Apprentice series too grim and creepy for comfort.
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls. (Ghost adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-6491-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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