by Patricia Reilly Giff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 7, 2014
Tender and satisfying.
Siria was born on New Year’s Day and named for the star Sirius, which shines brightest in the winter.
Almost 12, she only vaguely remembers her mom, who died when she was little, but she cherishes the astronomy book that belonged to her. She believes that her mother entrusted her with her father’s well-being. Pop is a firefighter and the only family she has, and she is determined to keep him safe. She is frightened and feisty, headstrong and calculating. She sneaks out at night to follow the sirens and keep vigil with him and his team. A series of suspicious fires in her city neighborhood during the Christmas holiday season involves Siria in ever more dangerous escapades and seriously disrupts her friendships when she mistakenly believes her best friend might be an arsonist. Siria narrates her own story as it is unfolding; there is no omniscient adult voice to guide her, only her own sensitivity and insights as she pieces the puzzle together. Giff deftly builds upon Siria’s relationships with Pop, his colleagues at the firehouse, her friends Laila and Douglas, and a stray dog, greatly broadening the usual definition of family. There is some gritty reality, but the overall tone is one of goodness, kindness and community.
Tender and satisfying. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-375-83892-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
Share your opinion of this book
More by Patricia Reilly Giff
BOOK REVIEW
by Patricia Reilly Giff ; illustrated by Abby Carter
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019
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
Share your opinion of this book
More In The Series
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney
More by Jeff Kinney
BOOK REVIEW
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney
BOOK REVIEW
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney
BOOK REVIEW
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
by Kate DiCamillo ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
Tenderly resonant and memorable.
Ferris finds herself in the midst of several love stories during the summer before fifth grade.
Emma Phineas Wilkey’s moniker comes from the circumstances of her birth: under the Ferris wheel at the fairground. Her contained world, centered around her family and best friend, is filled with kindness, humor, and singular personalities, while the indeterminate late-20th-century small-town setting feels like a safe place from which to observe heartbreak and loss. Ferris’ architect father and her pragmatic mother, on break from teaching high school math, anchor her home life, along with Pinky, her hilariously ferocious 6-year-old sister, and Charisse, her grandmother, who claims to have seen an unhappy ghost in their big old house. Ferris’ best friend, Billy Jackson, whom she’s loved since kindergarten, hears the music of the world: “The whole world is singing all the time.” Ferris, serious and sensitive, is attuned to the ways that the vocabulary words they learned in Mrs. Mielk’s fourth grade class describe moments in her life. DiCamillo’s gift for conveying an entire person and world in a few brushstrokes of storytelling provides depth and quiet magic to this account of an eventful summer in which a ghost is appeased, an outlaw (Pinky) is somewhat reformed, and an uncle and aunt are reconciled. Ferris experiences two surprising moments of transcendence and becomes aware of the ways love suffuses everything. Characters are cued white.
Tenderly resonant and memorable. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781536231052
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Share your opinion of this book
More by Kate DiCamillo
BOOK REVIEW
by Kate DiCamillo ; illustrated by Julie Morstad
BOOK REVIEW
by Kate DiCamillo ; illustrated by Chris Van Dusen
BOOK REVIEW
by Kate DiCamillo ; illustrated by Sophie Blackall
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.