A heartfelt glimpse into tweens’ role-playing of different selves and a lifeline for anyone who’s ever felt different.
Fan fiction imitates reality when a would-be werewolf and vampire become fast friends.
Jamie Rose McKenzie, a seventh grader who likes to pretend to be a werewolf, has moved to Godwin Bay. Classmates Aimee, Jazmin, and Olivia help her get her bearings, but Jamie doesn’t gel with their ideas of fun or their beauty standards. Meanwhile, goth outcast Vera shares a favorite TV show with Jamie and has an affinity for vampires. Away from prying eyes and rumor mills, they bond while chatting on an online site called Wyvern. Vera even introduces Jamie to a couple of creative, like-minded online pals, Peyton and Danny. When classmates accidentally discover—and mock—Jamie and Vera’s shared writing project, Jamie must choose between standing up for a genuine friend or playing along with the in crowd. The pleasing illustrations, which are rendered in soft jewel tones and accentuate the human figures, convey layers of meaning, such as when Jamie metaphorically transforms into a wolf while exerting herself during PE. Fantasy flourishes indicate when Jamie and Vera are role-playing as their paranormal identities with one another. These middle schoolers might have some trouble fitting in with a mainstream crowd, but their longing for friends with whom to share passions and creativity is genuine. Jamie, Vera, and Olivia present white, while Aimee and Jazmin are brown-skinned.
A heartfelt glimpse into tweens’ role-playing of different selves and a lifeline for anyone who’s ever felt different. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9780316580250
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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
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