Move over Ramona Quimby, Portland has another neighbor you have to meet!
Ryan Hart is navigating the fourth grade and all its challenges with determination.
Her mom named her Ryan because it means “king,” and she wanted Ryan to feel powerful every time she heard her name; Ryan knows it means she is a leader. So when changes occur or disaster strikes, budding chef Ryan does her best to find the positive and “make sunshine.” When her dad is laid off from the post office, the family must make adjustments that include moving into a smaller house, selling their car, and changing how they shop for groceries. But Ryan gets to stay at Vernon Elementary, and her mom still finds a way to get her the ingredients she needs to practice new recipes. Her older brother, Ray, can be bossy, but he finds little ways to support her, especially when she is down—as does the whole family. Each episodic chapter confronts Ryan with a situation; intermittently funny, frustrating, and touching, they should be familiar and accessible to readers, as when Ryan fumbles her Easter speech despite careful practice. Ryan, her family, and friends are Black, and Watson continues to bring visibility to both Portland, Oregon, generally and its Black community specifically, making another wonderful contribution that allows Black readers to see themselves and all readers to find a character they can love.
Move over Ramona Quimby, Portland has another neighbor you have to meet! (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0056-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
An earnest but unpolished story, it nevertheless stands out for its confrontation of a little-acknowledged subject.
When his father is released after serving eight years in prison for stealing, 11-year-old Kaden hopes it will be a new beginning.
Brought up by Gram—his father’s mother—in a cluster of rural cabins (a quirky setting that works), Kaden keeps to himself, spending his free time in an abandoned fire tower with Kubla, a semitame crow. But on the first day of middle school, he meets Yo-Yo, a new kid who delivers friendship to Kaden and a bit of humor to the story. After a few false starts, Kaden and his newly released father begin to form a faltering relationship, despite his father’s sometimes implausibly temperamental behavior. But when Kaden discovers his father continues to steal, Kaden must make the hardest decision of his young life. While this story admirably delves into the hard questions of personal responsibility, it conveys its theme with little subtlety. Instead of allowing readers to figure things out for themselves, the text neatly interprets and sums up each action and exchange of dialogue. The supporting characters, with the exception of the delightful Yo-Yo, are one-dimensional. And although there are valuable messages here for young readers about making mature decisions, too many scenes that impart these messages seem gratuitous and pat, lacking a clear and forward-progressing relationship to the story as a whole.
An earnest but unpolished story, it nevertheless stands out for its confrontation of a little-acknowledged subject. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-58536-914-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though the writing is clever and there are plenty of amusing incidents included, life lessons and existential truths...
An imaginary friend who yearns to be real learns about life along with the children who conjure him up in a variety of guises.
Cuevas’ episodic story features childlike black-and-white drawings that contrast oddly with the decidedly adult tone of her main character’s musings. Jacques Papier is ostensibly 8 years old when he discovers that he is merely a figment of his “twin sister” Fleur’s imagination. When her parents take her to a psychiatrist, Jacques is stuck in the waiting room, where he meets Mr. Pitiful, Stinky Sock, and a variety of other oddball characters who invite him to the next meeting of Imaginaries Anonymous. With information gleaned there, he sets out on a series of new incarnations, from prisoner/co-conspirator/damsel in distress through perfect pet to best friend and magician’s assistant. New placements are made by the “reassignment office.” The description of this hilariously inefficient bureaucracy would make most adults chuckle knowingly, but it seems unlikely that young readers will get the joke. Between assignments, Jacques exists in a dark limbo, remembering bits and pieces of his previous lives and wondering about the nature of reality.
Though the writing is clever and there are plenty of amusing incidents included, life lessons and existential truths overwhelm everything, suggesting that the audience for this uneasy amalgam of whimsy and wisdom will be small. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-5254-2755-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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