A summer sleuth story that disappoints.
Fifteen-year-old Nate Crocker has his wallet stolen by someone dressed as Ludwig von Beethoven in the courtyard of a luxury building in Vancouver, British Columbia.
As consolation, he is invited to be the building’s resident pianist by the smarmy owner. Nate uses his access to the building to snoop around to find the thief, teaming up with another victim, Zandi Singh, who protests there daily against gentrification and housing displacement caused by the building’s construction. Nate also befriends a boy with autism who loves his music. Over time his impressions of his boss change as his boss expresses derogatory opinions about people with disabilities and Nate comes to understand his exploitation of people displaced by his business activities. Jackson’s book is fast paced, something accentuated by Nate’s nonlinear thought processes. He jumps from idea to idea with little explanation as to how he arrived at each conclusion. The transitions in the narrative are erratic as well. Jackson’s imagery is confusing, leaving readers unable to conjure up clear visions of the story. While Nate is presented as a promising musician, this element of the story feels underdeveloped, and the cast of secondary characters adds little to the story. A publisher’s note indicates the font was chosen to accommodate readers with dyslexia. Nate and most other characters are assumed to be White; Zandi’s name cues her as South Asian. Unfortunately, a broad generalization about people with autism is not interrogated.
A summer sleuth story that disappoints. (Mystery. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-989724-05-7
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Crwth Press
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
The magic of reading is given a refreshingly real twist.
This is the way Pearl’s world ends: not with a bang but with a scream.
Pearl Moran was born in the Lancaster Avenue branch library and considers it more her home than the apartment she shares with her mother, the circulation librarian. When the head of the library’s beloved statue of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay is found to be missing, Pearl’s scream brings the entire neighborhood running. Thus ensues an enchanting plunge into the underbelly of a failing library and a city brimful of secrets. With the help of friends old, uncertainly developing, and new, Pearl must spin story after compelling story in hopes of saving what she loves most. Indeed, that love—of libraries, of books, and most of all of stories—suffuses the entire narrative. Literary references are peppered throughout (clarified with somewhat superfluous footnotes) in addition to a variety of tangential sidebars (the identity of whose writer becomes delightfully clear later on). Pearl is an odd but genuine narrator, possessed of a complex and emotional inner voice warring with a stridently stubborn outer one. An array of endearing supporting characters, coupled with a plot both grounded in stressful reality and uplifted by urban fantasy, lend the story its charm. Both the neighborhood and the library staff are robustly diverse. Pearl herself is biracial; her “long-gone father” was black and her mother is white. Bagley’s spot illustrations both reinforce this and add gentle humor.
The magic of reading is given a refreshingly real twist. (reading list) (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6952-1
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Readers will need to strap on their helmets and prepare for a wild ride.
Disaster overtakes a group of sixth graders on a leadership-building white-water rafting trip.
Deep in the Montana wilderness, a dam breaks, and the resultant rush sweeps away both counselors, the rafts, and nearly all the supplies, leaving five disparate preteens stranded in the wilderness far from where they were expected to be. Narrator Daniel is a mild White kid who’s resourceful and good at keeping the peace but given to worrying over his mentally ill father. Deke, also White, is a determined bully, unwilling to work with and relentlessly taunting the others, especially Mia, a Latina, who is a natural leader with a plan. Tony, another White boy, is something of a friendly follower and, unfortunately, attaches himself to Deke while Imani, a reserved African American girl, initially keeps her distance. After the disaster, Deke steals the backpack with the remaining food and runs off with Tony, and the other three resolve to do whatever it takes to get it back, eventually having to confront the dangerous bully. The characters come from a variety of backgrounds but are fairly broadly drawn; still, their breathlessly perilous situation keeps the tale moving briskly forward, with one threatening situation after another believably confronting them. As he did with Wildfire (2019), Newbery Honoree Philbrick has crafted another action tale for young readers that’s impossible to put down.
Readers will need to strap on their helmets and prepare for a wild ride. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-64727-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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