Awfully cheesy and a little doughy but also satisfying.
Adventures with family, friendship, fame, and pizza.
Luca Salvatore loves his Italian American family’s pizza shop, which is in financial crisis. He’s sure that if he can get them featured on his favorite reality show, “Pizza Perfect,” the attention will save the restaurant—and his parents’ rapidly deteriorating marriage. But that’s not all on Luca’s plate. His younger twin siblings are a handful at the best of times, and their behavior escalates once Pop moves out. Luca has an all-consuming crush on Will White, a new boy at school who “looks like he might be Asian,” while trying to conceal his feelings from his spotlight-stealing best friend, June Mason, who’s cued white. Despite a formulaic plot and prose that’s overloaded with food metaphors (body like a stock pot, anxiety like uncooked calamari, bones like breadsticks) and frequent interjections of “mamma mia” and “Madone,” the tension is unrelenting. A preternaturally talented chef, Luca whips up uncommon pizza varieties like chicken piccata and arancini. Most major plot elements are resolved via heartful conversations that sometimes ring overly mature for the tweens involved. Other side issues, like Ma’s involvement in a multilevel marketing scheme, June’s role in a musical, Will’s band troubles, and Luca’s unsupportive grandmother, mix together like a lot of extra toppings.
Awfully cheesy and a little doughy but also satisfying. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9780063337367
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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