Like salted caramel, a perfect balance of flavors, this deftly drawn story is a heartfelt treat.
Two brothers navigate a new country, a new language, and grief through cake.
In this graphic/prose hybrid novel, 12-year-old Jingwen, his little brother, Yanghao, and their mother immigrate to Australia. The family is Chinese, though their home country is never specified. The boys start at the Northbridge Primary School not knowing any English, which has Jingwen feeling they have just arrived on Mars. Quickly he realizes it is he and Yanghao who must appear to be the Martians to everyone else, comically literalized with pictures of a four-eyed, antennae’d Jingwen. While Yanghao quickly picks up English, Jingwen resists, struggling in lessons and to make friends. Piece by piece readers learn it was Jingwen’s father’s dream to open a cake shop called Pie in the Sky in Australia before he suddenly passed away. After finding the family’s cookbook, the boys decide to secretly bake all the Pie in the Sky cakes. Jingwen especially takes it to heart, pouring his grief and frustrations into every frosted layer, believing that it “will fix everything.” Herself an immigrant to Australia from Singapore, Lai unfolds the story like a memory, giving brief flashbacks interspersed throughout the daily musings and nuanced relationships among family members. Jingwen’s emotional journey is grounded in honest reality; it ebbs and flows naturally with strategic spots of humor to lighten the overall tone.
Like salted caramel, a perfect balance of flavors, this deftly drawn story is a heartfelt treat. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 10-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31409-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
A film is already in development, and if it lives up to this marvel-laden debut, it’ll be well worth seeing.
Mibs can’t wait for her 13th birthday, when her special gift, or “savvy,” will awaken.
Everyone in her family—except beloved Papa, who married in—has one, from Grandpa Bomba’s ability to move mountains (literally) to Great Aunt Jules’s time-traveling sneezes. What will hers be? Not what she wants, it turns out, but definitely what she needs when the news that a highway accident has sent her father to the ICU impels her to head for the hospital aboard a Bible salesman’s old bus. Sending her young cast on a zigzag odyssey through the “Kansaska-Nebransas” heartland, Law displays both a fertile imagination (Mibs’s savvy is telepathy, but it comes with a truly oddball caveat) and a dab hand for likable, colorful characters. There are no serious villains here, only challenges to be met, friendships to be made and some growing up to do on the road to a two-hanky climax.
A film is already in development, and if it lives up to this marvel-laden debut, it’ll be well worth seeing. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3306-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial/Walden Media
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2008
Clears the bar for horse fanciers.
Seventh grader Abby St. Clair manages friend drama and competition at school and on her riding team in the lead-up to a big horse show.
In this third series entry (which readers can jump into midstride), Abby sees winning the upcoming horse show at Canterwood Crest Academy in Connecticut as a big step toward her goal of becoming a career equestrian. But conflict with her teammates poses more of an obstacle than her riding skills do. Abby and her enemies on the team, Nina and Selly, had a fight at the last competition and are being closely monitored by their coach, Rebecca. On top of that, Abby’s best friends, Thea and Vivi (established in earlier entries as Korean American and Black, respectively), seem to be excluding her. Abby also initially bungles how she handles her crush on new girl Mila. At least she’s made up with her stepsister, Emery. At Canterwood, Abby meets Sasha Silver, one of her heroes, whose winter riding clinic she applied for—but Sasha reveals that someone tried to sabotage her application. Abby’s team experiences more surprises during the event, setting things up for the next entry. Parents are mostly absent from the narrative; Abby talks to her dad via FaceTime. The dialogue and social media use are realistic, the pacing is snappy, and the equestrian details are accurate. Most characters read white.
Clears the bar for horse fanciers. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781665912990
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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