Nine-year-old Ellie and her mother live in a shelter following the loss of Ellie's farrier father, their home, the family dog and all their possessions in a hurricane. Ellie's mother is offered a job taking care of rescued horses on a Virginia estate, and Ellie gets a scholarship to an exclusive private school. In her first days there, the other students begin to believe that Ellie is a royal princess living in the estate's mansion. At first Ellie does nothing to disabuse the rumor and even cultivates princess-like habits, as the misapprehension has done wonders to get her past new-girl outsider status. Eventually her hand is forced, and she has to find the courage to tell them the truth about her past—but that past feels false, along with much of the story and the too-good-to-be-true Ellie. As she and her mother face their first Christmas after the hurricane, Ellie's narration conveys the feeling that her mother's making fried chicken compensates for her father's death, and nothing about the princess story feels credible. A decent start poorly realized. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-374-32108-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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Speaking up is hard when you’re shy, and it can be even harder if you’ve got two languages in your head.
Third-grader Estrella “Stella” Díaz, is a shy, Mexican-American girl who draws pictures and loves fish, and she lives in Chicago with her mother and older brother, Nick. Jenny, Stella’s best friend, isn’t in her class this year, and Stella feels lonely—especially when she sees that Vietnamese-American Jenny is making new friends. When a new student, Stanley Mason, arrives in her class, Stella introduces herself in Spanish to the white former Texan without realizing it and becomes embarrassed. Surely Stanley won’t want to befriend her after that—but he seems to anyway. Stella often confuses the pronunciation between English and Spanish sounds and takes speech classes. As an immigrant with a green card—a “legal alien,” according to her teacher—Stella feels that she doesn’t fully belong to either American culture or Mexican culture, and this is nicely reflected in her not being fully comfortable in either language, an experience familiar to many immigrant and first-generation children. This early-middle-grade book features italicized Spanish words and phrases with direct translations right after. There is a small subplot about bullying from Stella’s classmate, and readers will cheer as they see how, with the help of her friends and family, Stella overcomes her shyness and gives a presentation on Jacques Cousteau. Dominguez’s friendly black-and-white drawings grace most pages.
A nice and timely depiction of an immigrant child experience. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62672-858-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A group of talking farm animals catches wind of the farm owner’s intention to burn the barn (with them in it) for insurance money and hatches a plan to flee.
Bond begins briskly—within the first 10 pages, barn cat Burdock has overheard Dewey Baxter’s nefarious plan, and by Page 17, all of the farm animals have been introduced and Burdock is sharing the terrifying news. Grady, Dewey’s (ever-so-slightly) more principled brother, refuses to go along, but instead of standing his ground, he simply disappears. This leaves the animals to fend for themselves. They do so by relying on their individual strengths and one another. Their talents and personalities match their species, bringing an element of realism to balance the fantasy elements. However, nothing can truly compensate for the bland horror of the premise. Not the growing sense of family among the animals, the serendipitous intervention of an unknown inhabitant of the barn, nor the convenient discovery of an alternate home. Meanwhile, Bond’s black-and-white drawings, justly compared to those of Garth Williams, amplify the sense of dissonance. Charming vignettes and single- and double-page illustrations create a pastoral world into which the threat of large-scale violence comes as a shock.
Ironically, by choosing such a dramatic catalyst, the author weakens the adventure’s impact overall and leaves readers to ponder the awkward coincidences that propel the plot. (Animal fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-33217-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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