Entertaining and affirming.
Talia tries to crack the code to the complexities of sixth grade.
Talia Zargari loves math, writing, and drawing. She uses her codebook—filled with her observations, deductions, and artwork on quad-ruled pages—to decipher and navigate the unspoken rules of middle school. Talia is happy to still be best friends with Dash after other kids’ teasing about dating puts distance between them. She’s also thriving on the Chimeras, the newly formed co-ed math team, led by the smart and confident Leticia. The all-girls math team won a competition, and Talia hopes the boys will now treat them with more respect. Art teacher Mr. Wayne shows Talia and her friends connections between math and art, intertwining her two passions. But despite her successes, Talia’s parents put excessive pressure on her to succeed so as not to jeopardize her future college applications—and they continue to bring up a mistake she made in her last math competition. Fortunately, Talia learns that people are more complex than they initially appear: She once saw Leticia as effortlessly cool and smart but later learns that they share a lot of the same concerns, and the girls forge a bond. Working toward their next competition shows the math team members that practice pays off and that there are lots of different ways to lead. Talia has tan skin and curly black hair, Dash and Leticia read Black, and background characters mainly present white.
Entertaining and affirming. (Illustrated fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781536218039
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Affecting and hopeful.
A stray dog finds her destiny amid the chaos of a Southern California wildfire.
Wombat is a small dog with stubby legs and “silly ears / that look like furry cookies”—almost impossibly cute in Bricking’s occasional pencil-style vignettes. She’s mastered the art of survival, so when a mysterious internal voice prods her to go toward the fire, she resists. “The wrong way is the right way. / The right way is the wrong way,” the voice insists. When she tells fellow stray Silas about it, he tells Wombat she’s a “destiny dog,” bound to “find their person / before their person / can find them.” Convinced, she decides to follow the mysterious instructions. Meanwhile, Henry, a boy who’s leery of dogs, loves the bats at the wildlife rehabilitation center where Mama Ro, a veterinarian, works; his Mama J is a librarian. Henry and Barnabas, a fruit bat at the center, are both uprooted by the fire, and their paths converge with Wombat’s at an emergency shelter. The third-person perspective shifts from character to character in clusters of free-verse poems that fully immerse readers in each one’s experiences in turn. This extra-concentrated delivery of Applegate’s typically spare writing proves effective, balancing terror and sadness with heart and humor. Henry has light brown skin, Mama Ro has curly black hair and brown skin, and Mama J presents white.
Affecting and hopeful. (Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780063221178
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Storytide/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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