Though he’s president of his class now, Riverdale High’s Kevin Keller was a middle school mess.
Setting up for the prom with Veronica and Jughead prompts Kevin, Archie’s popular gay friend, to recount events surrounding his first prom back at Medford Middle School. Always the new kid, Army brat Kevin is chubby, zitty and brace-faced. He doesn’t know he’s gay, but he is a happy member of the comics-and-video-game–loving Geek Squad. With his three friends, he dodges school bully Elliot and tries to hang out with handsome swim-team captain Timmy. As the prom approaches, Elliot steps up bullying of classmate Luke, Timmy ignores the Squad, and friend Sammie (Samantha) wants more of a relationship than Kevin is ready for. Suddenly, Kevin’s square in Elliot’s sights. It turns out to be quite a night! Kupperberg offers a text-only back story on popular Archie Comics character Kevin Keller. There’s nothing particularly literary about it, but fans will enjoy and others may be prompted to pick up Kevin’s comic-book adventures. Kevin’s inner life is realistic, and the attempt to keep the perpetual teens of Riverdale current is commendable. However, technology and social issues in Riverdale still feel a bit like sunglasses on a cat.
A bubble-gum problem novel for gay preteens which may be innovation enough to warrant purchase. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-448-45852-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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There’s a monster in Sidwell, Massachusetts, that can only be seen at night or, as Twig reveals, if passersby are near her house.
It’s her older brother, James, born with wings just like every male in the Fowler line for the last 200 years. They were cursed by the Witch of Sidwell, left brokenhearted by their forebear Lowell Fowler. Twig and James are tired of the secret and self-imposed isolation. Lonely Twig narrates, bringing the small town and its characters to life, intertwining events present and past, and describing the effects of the spell on her fractured family’s daily life. Longing for some normalcy and companionship, she befriends new-neighbor Julia while James falls in love with Julia’s sister, Agate—only to learn they are descendants of the Witch. James and Agate seem as star-crossed as their ancestors, especially when the townspeople attribute a spate of petty thefts and graffiti protesting the development of the woods to the monster and launch a hunt. The mix of romance and magic is irresistible and the tension, compelling. With the help of friends and through a series of self-realizations and discoveries, Twig grows more self-assured. She is certain she knows how to change the curse. In so doing, Twig not only changes James’ fate, but her own, for the first time feeling the fullness of family, friends and hope for the future.
Enchanting. (Magical realism. 9-12)Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-38958-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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This pitch-perfect contemporary novel gently explores the past’s repercussions on the present
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Eleven-year-old Brooklynite Genie has “worry issues,” so when he and his older brother, Ernie, are sent to Virginia to spend a month with their estranged grandparents while their parents “try to figure it all out,” he goes into overdrive.
First, he discovers that Grandpop is blind. Next, there’s no Internet, so the questions he keeps track of in his notebook (over 400 so far) will have to go un-Googled. Then, he breaks the model truck that’s one of the only things Grandma still has of his deceased uncle. And he and Ernie will have to do chores, like picking peas and scooping dog poop. What’s behind the “nunya bidness door”? And is that a gun sticking out from Grandpop’s waistband? Reynolds’ middle-grade debut meanders like the best kind of summer vacation but never loses sense of its throughline. The richly voiced third-person narrative, tightly focused through Genie’s point of view, introduces both brothers and readers to this rural African-American community and allows them to relax and explore even as it delves into the many mysteries that so bedevil Genie, ranging from "Grits? What exactly are they?" to, heartbreakingly, “Why am I so stupid?” Reynolds gives his readers uncommonly well-developed, complex characters, especially the completely believable Genie and Grandpop, whose stubborn self-sufficiency belies his vulnerability and whose flawed love both Genie and readers will cherish.
This pitch-perfect contemporary novel gently explores the past’s repercussions on the present . (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1590-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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