A beautifully illustrated story full of angst, humor, and heart.
A ballet dancer finds rivalry and friendship at a prestigious summer workshop.
When Gracie gets the opportunity to attend New York Ballet Company’s Youth Dancer Summer Workshop, she’s thrilled at the chance to advance her skills and meet her ballet idol, NYBC’s principal ballerina. Not on her list? Making friends. After all, to achieve her dreams, she’ll need to focus on being the best, not getting boba after class with the other girls. Soon, however, Gracie finds that her expectations need adjusting. She may be the best dancer back in Ohio, but next to the other, more experienced students from around the world, she might as well be invisible. Demanding teachers, critical classmates, and the incessant noise of New York City shake her confidence and fill her with self-doubt. Still, kind Jazmin’s whispered help in class and a bet with talented Sariah reinvigorate Gracie and make her rethink her “no friends” stance. Mock’s solo debut sensitively grapples with what it means to pursue dance or any other activity at advanced levels. Readers on the cusp of getting serious about their own passions will find Gracie’s story relatable and appealing. The art, a mix of densely packed traditional comic panels and more dynamic layouts, wonderfully captures the movement and chaos of classrooms and city streets in warm, soft tones, joyfully disrupted by explosions of onomatopoeia. Gracie and Jazmin read white, and Sariah presents Black.
A beautifully illustrated story full of angst, humor, and heart. (author’s note, sketchbook, glossary) (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9780593181102
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 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
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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