A moving, realistic tale about a troubled tween finding a path to strength and purpose.
A horse changes the life of a girl burdened by parental dysfunction and denial in this middle-grade novel.
On the outside, sixth grader Hummer’s house on her father’s dairy farm looks pretty normal. What is inside is the reason that no one is ever asked to visit: The girl’s mother, Leona, who sits rocking in front of a TV, is an extreme hoarder. Her anxiety reaches fever pitch if Hummer tries to throw anything away. Every room but 12-year-old Hummer’s is filled with smelly garbage. Her father, Virgil, who has moved into the barn, says that his wife is temporarily going through “a stage” and appears to accept Leona’s excuse that she can’t venture outside the house due to her “bad legs.” This leaves Hummer to see that her mother eats and to secretly do laundry and try to throw away trash without upsetting her. In Gruenberg’s compassionate treatment of each member of this dysfunctional family, there are no villains; it is clear that beneath Virgil’s denial of his wife’s mental deterioration, he cares for Leona. Love fuels Hummer’s protectiveness of her mother, too, despite being taunted at school when she tries to compensate for the shame she feels by making up self-aggrandizing stories about her life. As school ends for the summer, an unexpected catalyst for change arrives one moonlit night: a beautiful runaway Arabian mare. Hummer loves her old pony, but she’s been dreaming of a horse of her own, and this is meant to be, she thinks. Dubbing the mare Fox, Hummer is crushed to learn the animal belongs to a nearby rancher. In this deftly crafted, resonant story, the author shows how a bond develops between Hummer and Fox, how the tween and the rancher, crusty Old Man Riley, come to an understanding based on their mutual love and respect for horses and equestrian skills—and what happens as he becomes aware of the dysfunction shaping the girl’s life. Gruenberg deepens the book’s setting with an authentic depiction of a working dairy farm and horse care and training. The author’s pencil illustrations add visual interest.
A moving, realistic tale about a troubled tween finding a path to strength and purpose.Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-395-51080-3
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Kenda Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sensitive, moving debut.
When 11-year-old Eric Harper begins caring for an injured unicorn, his life is changed by the choices he makes, the relationships he forms, and the secrets he uncovers.
Eric lives with his family on land that has belonged to Harpers for generations and shares a special bond with his grandmother. One day, Eric spies what he thinks is a white deer but quickly realizes is a white unicorn. Filled with the “most amazing feeling of comfort and happiness and excitement,” Eric follows the lame unicorn to the farmhouse his ailing grandmother recently sold to Dr. Brancusi, a veterinarian, and her daughter, Allegra. (All three characters appear to be white.) Dr. Brancusi senses Eric’s concern and asks him to help her treat the unicorn. Discovering the unicorn is pregnant with twins, Dr. Brancusi warns Eric they must keep her hidden until the babies are born and hires him to assist. Eric’s affinity to the unicorn deepens, and when she’s threatened and runs away, he frantically searches. In the end, although Eric experiences loss, he gains a special family connection. Despite the presence of supernatural creatures, Eric’s quiet, genuine, first-person voice tells a realistic story of family love and discovering one’s true self, the presence of the unicorn and other magical creatures adding just a touch of whimsy to a story about very real emotions, revealed in Green’s black-and-white illustrations.
A sensitive, moving debut. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: July 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-544-76112-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
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
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