Costume jewelry at best.
Sparkles are not gender specific.
Say hello to Blaine, a brown-skinned boy who loves things that sparkle. Blaine’s motto is “throw glitter, not shade!” and he embodies it by accessorizing everything from his hat to his backpack in shimmery sparkles. For the most part, Blaine’s classmates, a diverse bunch, embrace the title character’s dazzling accessories and help explain his passion to unfamiliar people by relating it to similar enthusiasms in their own lives. When the haters’ words eventually get to Blaine and bullying starts, the sparkles are abandoned, and Blaine becomes a shadow of his former glitzy self. Blaine’s friends notice the change and fix the problem by wearing their own scintillating accessories and engaging in (implied) in-depth conversations with the haters. The intentions are great, but the story itself creaks, treating Blaine like a plot device and not a real character. His only proactive stance throughout is to offer a sparkly present to one of his detractors as a peace offering, a one-sided gesture, as the kid never apologizes. The bland cartoon artwork does little to enhance the story, and while the diversity of characters is welcome, the use of slits to represent the closed eyes of an Asian student (as compared to every other character’s, which resemble u’s when closed) disappoints. The backmatter introduces readers to the term “ally,” but the subsequent best-practices advice does little to further the conversation.
Costume jewelry at best. (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4549-3456-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that.
Beatrice Zinker is a kinder, gentler Judy Moody.
Beatrice doesn’t want to be fit in a box. Her first word was “WOW,” not “Mom.” She does her best thinking upside down and prefers to dress like a ninja. Like Judy Moody, she has patient parents and a somewhat annoying younger brother. (She also has a perfectly ordinary older sister.) Beatrice spends all summer planning a top-secret spy operation complete with secret codes and a secret language (pig Latin). But on the first day of third grade, her best friend, Lenny (short for Eleanor), shows up in a dress, with a new friend who wants to play veterinarian at recess. Beatrice, essentially a kind if somewhat quirky kid, struggles to see the upside of the situation and ends up with two friends instead of one. Line drawings on almost every spread add to the humor and make the book accessible to readers who might otherwise balk at its 160 pages. Thankfully, the rhymes in the text do not continue past the first chapter. Children will enjoy the frequent puns and Beatrice’s preference for climbing trees and hanging upside down. The story drifts dangerously close to pedantry when Beatrice asks for advice from a grandmotherly neighbor but is saved by likable characters and upside-down cake. Beatrice seems to be white; Lenny’s surname, Santos, suggests that she may be Latina; their school is a diverse one.
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that. (Fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-6738-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading.
When Franklin School principal Mr. Boone announces a pet-show fundraiser, white third-grader Cody—whose lack of skill and interest in academics is matched by keen enthusiasm for and knowledge of animals—discovers his time to shine.
As with other books in this series, the children and adults are believable and well-rounded. Even the dialogue is natural—no small feat for a text easily accessible to intermediate readers. Character growth occurs, organically and believably. Students occasionally, humorously, show annoyance with teachers: “He made mad squinty eyes at Mrs. Molina, which fortunately she didn’t see.” Readers will be kept entertained by Cody’s various problems and the eventual solutions. His problems include needing to raise $10 to enter one of his nine pets in the show (he really wants to enter all of them), his troublesome dog Angus—“a dog who ate homework—actually, who ate everything and then threw up afterward”—struggles with homework, and grappling with his best friend’s apparently uncaring behavior toward a squirrel. Serious values and issues are explored with a light touch. The cheery pencil illustrations show the school’s racially diverse population as well as the memorable image of Mr. Boone wearing an elephant costume. A minor oddity: why does a child so immersed in animal facts call his male chicken a rooster but his female chickens chickens?
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-30223-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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