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SAVING WONDER

Name: SAVING WONDER
Author: Mary Knight
ISBN: 978-0-545-82893-2

by Mary Knight ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 2016

A likable protagonist and good writing can't overcome the novel's problems. (Fiction. 8-12)

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It's been five years since 12-year-old Curley's mother and little brother drowned when a coal mine slurry pond broke its banks and swallowed them and seven years since his father died in a mining accident.

Now Curley, his best friend, Jules, and the mine owner's son, JD, join together to prevent the coal company from clear-cutting and surface-mining the mountain that they love. The catch: Curley and his grandfather subsist on cash from an informal settlement with the mine company, which will end if Curley continues his protest. Winning means moving away. Unfortunately, the premise is the book’s fatal flaw. It is wildly unlikely that any coal company in existence would settle a clear-cut wrongful-death claim with just a handshake, and moreover, Curley would automatically receive social security and worker’s compensation benefits due to his father's death, which undermines the central plot. Knight ably navigates middle school friendships but in demonstrating Curley’s and his grandfather's love of language sometimes carries cleverness too far: Curley uses every one of his "words of the week," in alphabetical order, to denounce the coal company in a video. Appalachian tropes abound, and the local opposition to Big Coal also strains credulity—in a part of the country where good jobs are scarcer than scenery, not everyone can afford to be an environmentalist.

A likable protagonist and good writing can't overcome the novel's problems. (Fiction. 8-12)

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-545-82893-2

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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CLUES TO THE UNIVERSE

by Christina Li ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2021

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.

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An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.

Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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NUMBER THE STARS

by Lois Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1989

A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...

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The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.

Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.

A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)