Nick ably joins Greg Heffley and Big Nate in comically maneuvering the minefield of middle school life.
Fry (Bully Bait, 2013) hits his stride in this second hilarious exploration of the hazards and histrionics of middle school, as seen through the eyes of Nick, the shortest seventh-grader ever.
Having shut down bullying at Emily Dickinson Middle School, the Odd Squad has little of importance to do. Molly’s growing friendship with a new girl at school makes Nick jealously seek attention. Wanting to prove that the ghost of the school’s poet is real and realizing that Emily appears only when someone is bullied, Nick bullies himself. Wrapped in toilet paper and stuffed into a trash can that hurtles down a staircase, Nick embarks on a series of disastrous yet funny choices that bring Zero Tolerance for Intolerance to the school. Abetted by his quirky grandmother, Memaw, Nick crashes the class field trip to King Potatamus’s Egyptopolis (and Water Park) in a wacky adventure that brings a flirtatious encounter between Mr. Dupree, the Shakespeare-quoting school janitor and Safety Patrol adviser, and Memaw, who, in Nick’s estimation, “could make a mime scream.” Amid the laugh-out-loud humor and abundant cartoon-style illustrations is an important message: While all kids may want to be normal, it’s OK to be oneself. Or as Memaw says, “Sweetie, normal is overrated.”
Nick ably joins Greg Heffley and Big Nate in comically maneuvering the minefield of middle school life. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-7099-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short.
In the dystopian, totalitarian world of 2099, 14-year-old Tessa and her family are desperate to solve the mystery of her twin brother Theo’s disappearance.
Tessa is growing up in a time when playgrounds are historical relics, surveillance cameras are everywhere, music is outlawed, and owning books is illegal. Under the absolute rule of Zokiris, the decadeslong leader of her territory, people are heavily controlled. When Theo vanishes under mysterious circumstances and his name is erased from the Territory Statistics list, Tessa’s 135-year-old neighbor, Miriam, gives the family contraband books that become central to figuring out Theo’s whereabouts. Most books have long since been seized and stored away in Building 903; Tessa is intrigued by their presence in her home, while her mother is terrified. Lowry, the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Giver (1993), shines in her creation of uncomfortably believable dystopian societies. Tessa’s painfully limited world is fully imagined, with its own history, laws, and norms. Her relationship with her brother reads as realistic and tender and is crucial to the mystery. Miriam is the most strongly developed character: wise and independent, unafraid and hopeful. While the climb to the book’s climax is captivating, the hurried resolution is disappointing. The powerful messaging around the importance of literature and imagination certainly resonates, however. The main characters present white.
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short. (Dystopian. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780063515109
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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
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