A touching, intimate exploration of universal themes of trust, conformity, and the impact of family dynamics.
A Maryland seventh grader prepares to become a bat mitzvah while still worrying about typical middle school challenges.
From the dramatic opening sequence, readers are deeply immersed in 12-year-old Becky’s world, infused with food, friends, and family traditions. As part of a close-knit Jewish family, dark-haired, blue-eyed Becky, a talented flutist, navigates the pressures of observant life as a rabbi’s daughter while comparing herself to her seemingly perfect siblings. From maintaining appearances, to making questionable decisions, to grappling with interfaith relationships, the depiction of loving relationships among Becky and her siblings, parents, friends, and extended family is central to the charm of the story. Becky’s kind-natured good intentions come through in her actions, such as supporting a friend or choosing thoughtful presents for her brothers. But as she discovers the dangers of idealizing those around her and makes her own flawed choices, the tension rises. Employing a dual timeline, Milliner’s sophomore novel juxtaposes poetic present-day vignettes with richly detailed chapters set in the past, together showing Becky’s insights and growth. This heart-wrenching, emotional, compulsively readable work traces the evolution of secrets and lies. From minor omissions to catastrophic revelations, they strain relationships and test unshakable bonds, leading to tragedy but ultimately concluding with hope and a clearer path to self-awareness and understanding.
A touching, intimate exploration of universal themes of trust, conformity, and the impact of family dynamics. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780063311640
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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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