A well-crafted tale filled with heart.
A celebration of amigurumi, boba, and creativity.
In California’s Silicon Valley, Taiwanese American rising seventh grader Pearl Li sometimes feels like she’s an outsider. While her parents, who have a financial software startup company, and her mobile app developer sister, a high school junior, love to talk about all things tech and coding, Pearl’s passions lie in arts and crafts, particularly crochet and making adorable amigurumi dolls. Amid the strip malls of Sunnydale, Boba Time is a refuge for Pearl. Owned by the exuberant Auntie Cha, it’s a welcoming place where Pearl feels full support for her creative endeavors. When competition from a flashy new Taiwanese dessert chain and rising costs—both business and personal—put the future of Boba Time in jeopardy, Pearl hatches a plan to raise money and help save it. But being a 12-year-old entrepreneur will take support from her parents or resorting to secrecy and half-truths. Chen’s ode to the pursuit of one’s passions effectively captures tween yearnings and misadventures they may bring. Pearl is a compelling protagonist, and the diverse cast of secondary characters brings additional emotional depth. Narrative parallels weave together themes: Several characters’ struggles with cultural and linguistic fluency mirror Pearl’s feelings of exclusion in her tech-centered family. Boba Time, with its more traditional ambiance and practices, and the handmade ways of fiber arts butt up against modern counterparts. The book’s genuine tone and appreciation of craft, culture, and community will capture readers’ attention.
A well-crafted tale filled with heart. (glossary, recipe) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-322861-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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