A dynamic series opener ideal for those who enjoy fast-paced, high-stakes adventure.
Three best friends go on an interplanetary adventure to rescue a beloved grandpa and maybe save a planet from destruction.
Arthur Keaton Underwood, aka Aku, especially loves four things: video games, baseball, outer space, and his grandpa, who disappeared last year during one of his “classified work trips.” Ever since, Aku’s dad has become stiflingly overprotective, but Aku manages thanks to his supportive best friends, Trae and Benji. One day, he finds an astronaut’s helmet in a box that’s addressed to him. Putting it on activates the helmet, and a voice tells Aku that Grandpa is alive on planet Ibra in the Void Galaxy. He’s sent Aku his helmet as an invitation to join him on a mission. After being transported to Ibra, which is under threat, Aku meets the Avalunas, small creatures who protect the endangered lunaberry trees. A sudden attack sends Aku back to Indiana, where his dad confiscates the helmet, saying it’s too dangerous for a 12-year-old. Trae and Benji are skeptical about Aku’s intergalactic adventure—until the three kids find the hidden helmet and are accidentally transported to Ibra, where things quickly go awry. Debut author Johnson’s straightforward, easy-to-follow storytelling includes some satisfying twists for the intrepid explorers, who are Black (Trae is also mixed race). Black-and-white illustrations by van der Meer bring added life to the action and creative worldbuilding.
A dynamic series opener ideal for those who enjoy fast-paced, high-stakes adventure. (Science fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780593811788
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
