A fitting sequel that deepens the magical world and its well-developed characters.
In this follow-up to Charmed Life (2023), Hasani finds herself faced with questions, choices, and her biggest magical challenges yet.
Hasani and her best friends, Luz, Angelique, and Dee, are back in this third series installment. Still fresh from hearing the news that she’s a witch and having spent her summer at witch camp, Les Belles Demoiselles, Hasani is trying to balance learning more about her magical side as a wildseed with being on the school’s Mathletes team. She’s also continuing to grow her YouTube channel, MakeupontheCheapCheap. This entry involves some chapters from the perspective of LaToya, Hasani’s fellow witch who’s something of a rival; she appears to be up to some grand scheme that apparently involves all of Riverbend Middle School. While strange and possibly dangerous occurrences at school related to LaToya crop up, Hasani and friends are uncertain of exactly what’s going on, and they try to figure out LaToya’s plan and to determine whether they should intervene or “live and let live,” as is the custom of witches. As they embark on their search for answers, they discover more about themselves, each other, and the magical society in which they exist. Dumas continues to expand the worldbuilding while adding layers to the characters’ histories and personalities. Readers should be familiar with the previous volumes to fully immerse themselves in this book.
A fitting sequel that deepens the magical world and its well-developed characters. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781419772733
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
PROFILES
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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