Sleuthing aplenty but more character- than conundrum-driven.
Old photos of a boy in a coffin lead two young Ohio gumshoes into a web of secrets.
A mystery involving a possibly haunted funeral home owned by a newly arrived family puts the nerves as well as the investigative skills of outgoing Nevaeh Greevey and shy, cerebral Colin Creedmont to the test in this sequel to The Secret Letters (2022). Not only does a complex tale dating back decades ultimately come to light in long-hidden letters, news stories, pictures, and keepsakes, but the plot features spooky rummaging through the funeral home’s cluttered attic and a graveyard visit. There’s also a familial connection, as the parents of both amateur sleuths run house-clearing operations—formerly as rivals with very different ideas of what constitutes “junk” and now in a contentious partnership. But since Haddix focuses largely on her protagonists’ thoughts, reactions, and attitudes in shaping the narrative, her tale has a distinctly introspective turn—particularly after Colin learns something about the father he’s never met. Readers seeking a meaty mystery solved by clues and deduction will find one, but it sometimes takes second fiddle to developments within and between members of a mostly white cast. The blended family that moves into the funeral home is implied to be multiracial. One elderly source of information exhibits clear signs of dementia, which the author discusses, along with funeral customs and other relevant topics, in a lengthy afterword.
Sleuthing aplenty but more character- than conundrum-driven. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9780063089815
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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
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
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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