Salutary reading for anyone who needs steering toward good behavior…or good-ish anyway.
The Norse god of lies gets well and truly served for his misdeeds—stuck in Midgard (Earth) as an 11-year-old boy with one month to mend his ways.
Sternly forbidden by Odin to use his godly powers and compelled to record his experiences in a diary that automatically flags every fib, Loki, or Liam Smith, endures massive frustration as every attempt to raise his rapidly falling Loki Virtue Score with good deeds falls afoul of both his ingrained trickster instincts and his general cluelessness about humans and their feelings. (It doesn’t help that Thor, “god of bum thunder,” comes along disguised as his rude brother.) Readers will have no trouble seeing where, time after time, he goes wrong…or spotting the literally faint signs of a voice of conscience that begin to appear on occasional pages even before he climactically hires himself out to a bully for a humiliating trick on Valerie, the one classmate he’s managed not to alienate. Along with flavorsome Norse mythological references, Stowell peppers her whiny protagonist’s daily entries with spiky pen-and-ink drawings of mostly White divines and humans, hand-lettered outbursts, and isolated cartoon panels with smart comments in balloons. At last, after Loki helps rescue Valerie from a quartet of frost giants and, more importantly, shows sincere remorse for doing her wrong, the one-eyed Allfather grants his request to stick around Midgard for future adventures in friendship and snack-food discoveries.
Salutary reading for anyone who needs steering toward good behavior…or good-ish anyway. (Graphic adventure. 9-12)Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2327-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short.
In the dystopian, totalitarian world of 2099, 14-year-old Tessa and her family are desperate to solve the mystery of her twin brother Theo’s disappearance.
Tessa is growing up in a time when playgrounds are historical relics, surveillance cameras are everywhere, music is outlawed, and owning books is illegal. Under the absolute rule of Zokiris, the decadeslong leader of her territory, people are heavily controlled. When Theo vanishes under mysterious circumstances and his name is erased from the Territory Statistics list, Tessa’s 135-year-old neighbor, Miriam, gives the family contraband books that become central to figuring out Theo’s whereabouts. Most books have long since been seized and stored away in Building 903; Tessa is intrigued by their presence in her home, while her mother is terrified. Lowry, the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Giver (1993), shines in her creation of uncomfortably believable dystopian societies. Tessa’s painfully limited world is fully imagined, with its own history, laws, and norms. Her relationship with her brother reads as realistic and tender and is crucial to the mystery. Miriam is the most strongly developed character: wise and independent, unafraid and hopeful. While the climb to the book’s climax is captivating, the hurried resolution is disappointing. The powerful messaging around the importance of literature and imagination certainly resonates, however. The main characters present white.
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short. (Dystopian. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780063515109
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel.
Sandy and his family, Japanese Canadians, experience hatred and incarceration during World War II.
Sandy Saito loves baseball, and the Vancouver Asahi ballplayers are his heroes. But when they lose in the 1941 semifinals, Sandy’s dad calls it a bad omen. Sure enough, in December 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor in the U.S. The Canadian government begins to ban Japanese people from certain areas, moving them to “dormitories” and setting a curfew. Sandy wants to spend time with his father, but as a doctor, his dad is busy, often sneaking out past curfew to work. One night Papa is taken to “where he [is] needed most,” and the family is forced into an internment camp. Life at the camp isn’t easy, and even with some of the Asahi players playing ball there, it just isn’t the same. Trying to understand and find joy again, Sandy struggles with his new reality and relationship with his father. Based on the true experiences of Japanese Canadians and the Vancouver Asahi team, this graphic novel is a glimpse of how their lives were affected by WWII. The end is a bit abrupt, but it’s still an inspiring and sweet look at how baseball helped them through hardship. The illustrations are all in a sepia tone, giving it an antique look and conveying the emotions and struggles. None of the illustrations of their experiences are overly graphic, making it a good introduction to this upsetting topic for middle-grade readers.
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel. (afterword, further resources) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0334-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
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