This empathetic debut is a middle-grade whodunit with a very special heart.
Matthew is the Jimmy Stewart of this Rear Window for middle graders.
Behind the safety of his bedroom window, 12-year-old Matthew Corbin watches the world go by. Unable to go to school consistently or play with friends like other children his age because of a crippling fear of germs, Matthew observes life from behind the safety of glass windowpanes. Neighbors come and go about their business. Children play. And one day, a posh black car delivers a young girl and her baby brother to their grandfather, and neither Matthew nor his cul-de-sac in a largely white London suburb will ever be the same. When 15-month-old Teddy disappears, Matthew, with the unexpected help of a quirky, cemetery-obsessed neighbor, vows to solve the mystery of his disappearance. Matthew’s struggles with OCD and guilt over the death of his own baby brother are heartbreakingly real, yet somehow, even in Matthew’s most difficult moments, the novel never loses its sense of hope. Hope that Teddy will be found. And hope that Matthew will fight his demons and reclaim his life. A secondary cast of characters, including Matthew’s parents and Melody Bird, his sassy, self-appointed investigative partner, helps to make this possible. Thompson strikes the perfect balance, seemingly without compromise, between an issue-driven novel and one with broad, commercial appeal.
This empathetic debut is a middle-grade whodunit with a very special heart. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-05394-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
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