Richly detailed and imagined; will invite repeat visits to harvest all the delights.
A family begins a new chapter in the story of their mysterious garden.
Fourteen-year-old Magnolia “Maggie” Gartner lives on the farm that’s been in her family for generations, ever since her tenth-great-grandfather, a Hessian soldier fighting for the British, settled in the New Jersey forests in 1776. He and his wife planted a linden tree that formed the heart of a magical garden. Pragmatic Maggie has meticulously chronicled her family’s recipes, anticipating her turn to cook her first dinner. The extraordinary harvests each cook finds in the garden create unique emotional responses among guests. Once shared with friends and townsfolk, the dinners have become a family business, with tickets sold to the wealthy. But when the garden is finally revealed to her, Maggie is devastated to find decay and rot. After all, the garden “showed you what you needed to see. And who you needed to become,” so what does this mean for her? Especially since her new friend, Graham Flores, finds the key to the garden gate and discovers the abundance Maggie hoped for. Their destinies are intertwined, it seems. In this page-turning story, Leavitt adroitly balances comedic and poignant elements, classical allusions, and contemporary diversions (like the local cryptid, the Jersey Devil). Convincing journal entries add historical context and character development as German American Maggie and those around her confront the challenges converging on the farm and neighboring town.
Richly detailed and imagined; will invite repeat visits to harvest all the delights. (map, family tree) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781250858528
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Godwin Books
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
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