by L.M. Lynch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2001
As if life with a gifted-and-talented little sister who watches an imaginary TV inside her head weren’t bad enough, Laurel’s favorite tree—the climbing tree—along the nature trail in her Westchester town is summarily chopped down by a reclusive new resident. As if the increasing distance between Laurel and her best-friend-since-forever weren’t bad enough, she finds that her growing friendship with the daughter of said new resident threatens to isolate her in a community united against the “tree-killer.” And as if all these narrative balls weren’t enough to juggle, newcomer Lynch adds a ridiculous subplot in which the otherwise-intelligent Laurel becomes convinced that her new friend’s brother has been taken over by a computer intelligence. Laurel herself is an appealing everygirl whose (rather overblown) sense that life has stacked the deck against her will resonate with many readers, and the details of the dynamics of sixth-grade friendships are finely drawn. But although it provides a platform for some fairly interesting facts about computers and artificial intelligence, Laurel’s increasingly annoying obsession with her friend’s brother distracts the reader from her much more interesting growth as a sister, as a friend, and as an independent thinker. Also increasingly annoying is the inexplicable device of beginning each chapter with a segment in the present tense before switching to the past tense. The title and the cover illustration highlight the computer subplot—a pity, since it’s the weakest part of the whole. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-80663-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
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by Bobbie Pyron ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2019
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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by Seymour Simon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1993
Remarking that ``nothing about the weather is very simple,'' Simon goes on to describe how the sun, atmosphere, earth's rotation, ground cover, altitude, pollution, and other factors influence it; briefly, he also tells how weather balloons gather information. Even for this outstanding author, it's a tough, complex topic, and he's not entirely successful in simplifying it; moreover, the import of the striking uncaptioned color photos here isn't always clear. One passage—``Cumulus clouds sometimes build up into towering masses called cumulus congestus, or swelling cumulus, which may turn into cumulonimbus clouds''—is superimposed on a blue-gray, cloud-covered landscape. But which kind of clouds are these? Another photo, in blue-black and white, shows what might be precipitation in the upper atmosphere, or rain falling on a darkened landscape, or...? Generally competent and certainly attractive, but not Simon's best. (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-10546-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
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