Uncommon elements give this time-travel novel a charming spin.
After moving to a new house, a girl finds a portal to its previous residents from a century ago.
Not only has Maddy’s mom remarried and gotten pregnant, but Dan, her new, annoying stepdad, has moved them from Toronto to an old octagonal house in the countryside. On the mend from a bad bout of bronchitis and still tackling her asthma, the tween begins exploring her unusual house. A black cat helps her discover a door in the woodshed’s loft, and once opened, it becomes a portal from her present in 2001 to the house’s previous residents, nearly 100 years earlier. Through numerous trips back and forth between these time periods, Maddy observes Eva, a girl with consumption, and meets Eva’s brother, Clarence, who goes by Clare. In this quiet and evenly paced blend of fantasy and historical fiction, Maddy notes the similarities between Eva’s and her own health conditions and becomes determined to work with Clare to save Eva. A soap-making scheme introduces readers to farm life at the beginning of the 20th century. But as problems also mount in her own time, Maddy realizes that she’s been neglecting the real people who need her most. Although never didactic, this gentle narration, enhanced with quaint black-line drawings, emphasizes building family relationships and accepting responsibility for one’s actions. Characters follow a White default.
Uncommon elements give this time-travel novel a charming spin. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-988761-51-0
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Common Deer Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship.
A young tennis champion becomes the target of revenge.
In this sequel to Legacy and the Queen (2019), Legacy Petrin and her friends Javi and Pippa have returned to Legacy’s home province and the orphanage run by her father. With her friends’ help, she is in training to defend her championship when they discover that another player, operating under the protection of High Consul Silla, is presenting herself as Legacy. She is so convincing that the real Legacy is accused of being an imitation. False Legacy has become a hero to the masses, further strengthening Silla’s hold, and it becomes imperative to uncover and defeat her. If Legacy is to win again, she must play her imposter while disguised as someone else. Winning at tennis is not just about money and fame, but resisting Silla’s plans to send more young people into brutal mines with little hope of better lives. Legacy will have to overcome her fears and find the magic that allowed her to claim victory in the past. This story, with its elements of sports, fantasy, and social consciousness that highlight tensions between the powerful and those they prey upon, successfully continues the series conceived by late basketball superstar Bryant. As before, the tennis matches are depicted with pace and spirit. Legacy and Javi have brown skin; most other characters default to White.
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949520-19-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl...
The closing of her favorite swimming pool opens 11-year-old Gloriana Hemphill’s eyes to the ugliness of racism in a small Mississippi town in 1964.
Glory can’t believe it… the Hanging Moss Community Pool is closing right before her July Fourth birthday. Not only that, she finds out the closure’s not for the claimed repairs needed, but so Negroes can’t swim there. Tensions have been building since “Freedom Workers” from the North started shaking up status quo, and Glory finds herself embroiled in it when her new, white friend from Ohio boldly drinks from the “Colored Only” fountain. The Hemphills’ African-American maid, Emma, a mother figure to Glory and her sister Jesslyn, tells her, “Don’t be worrying about what you can’t fix, Glory honey.” But Glory does, becoming an activist herself when she writes an indignant letter to the newspaper likening “hateful prejudice” to “dog doo” that makes her preacher papa proud. When she’s not saving the world, reading Nancy Drew or eating Dreamsicles, Glory shares the heartache of being the kid sister of a preoccupied teenager, friendship gone awry and the terrible cost of blabbing people’s secrets… mostly in a humorously sassy first-person voice.
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl who takes a stand. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-33180-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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