bookshelf

GREEN EYES AND HAM

Name: GREEN EYES AND HAM
Author: Mary Penney
ISBN: 978-0-06-269693-9

by Mary Penney ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 31, 2022

Earnest but verging on hammy.

bookshelf

Real friendships are built on mutual support and trust.

Thirteen-year-old Abraham “Ham” Hudson’s life changes dramatically when his pastor mother has a cardiac event, forcing her to work less and focus more on her health. To help her reduce her workload, which includes being his home-school teacher, Ham agrees to attend public school. Eighth grade starts out with mixed results: Ham will be attending with his new neighbor and first ever friend, Fey, a girl whose family moves frequently due to her prison guard parents’ job transfers, making her the perpetual new girl. Ham also quickly discovers that his love of running makes him a good fit for the cross-country team, but it’s here that he runs afoul of Bijou, a competitive girl who must prove herself the best even if it means breaking others down. Ham also encounters Micah, a mysterious boy with startling green eyes and a magnetic personality. Ham is smitten and is pulled into Micah’s alluring but risky adventures—ones that lead to a near-fatal incident that helps Ham understand the true meaning of friendship. As a character, Ham is a friendly, likable, and wide-eyed narrator, which is both the strength and weakness of the story. Some readers may enjoy his good-natured innocence; others may grow frustrated at his unrelenting gullibility. The story is amusing but feels like a dessert: very sweet but ultimately just empty calories.

Earnest but verging on hammy. (Fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: May 31, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-06-269693-9

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

bookshelf

CLUES TO THE UNIVERSE

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

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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...

bookshelf

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)