Doughn’t miss this earnest tale.
Trouble abounds when shadowy figures dump mysterious gloop near Owl’s Outstanding Donuts.
While the neighborhood sleeps, an owl named Alfred notices the white truck as it stops and two scoundrels discard the gloop into the creek before leaving again. Worried about the pollution, Alfred alerts a local girl named Mattie Waters. At first, Mattie’s slow to act. The recent death of her mother plagues the young girl, who’s moved to Big Sur to live with Aunt Molly, owner of Owl’s. Summer’s ending, fifth grade approaches, and Mattie is finding it hard to move on. She knows, though, that the gloop-pollutant spells trouble for her aunt’s renowned doughnut shop. Together with the Little sisters (7-year-old ball of fun Beanie and the older, skeptical Sasha), Mattie must unmask the culprits behind the gloop. Again blending realism with talking animals, Yardi (The Midnight War of Mateo Martinez, 2016) devotes a significant number of pages toward unpacking Mattie’s grief in her latest novel, a narrative that shuns action in favor of introspection. This tendency mostly works thanks to a robust cast of winning characters and a satisfying emotional arc. The third-person narration sticks to Mattie for the most part, with some excursions into Alfred’s amusing point of view. Except for a few peripheral characters, a white default is assumed.
Doughn’t miss this earnest tale. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5415-3305-9
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Certain to steal hearts.
In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary.
She’s apprehensive about her Tuskday, a rite of passage for young elephants when she’ll give a speech in front of the rest of the herd. Luckily, she can confide in her Uncle Ivan, who is next door in Gorilla World, and Uncle Bob, the dog who lives nearby with human friend Julia. Ruby was born in an unspecified part of Africa, later ending up on display in the mall, where she met Ivan, Bob, and Julia. The unexpected arrival of someone from Ruby’s past life on the savanna revives memories both warmly nostalgic and deeply traumatic. An elephant glossary and Castelao’s charming, illustrated guide to elephant body language help immerse readers in Ruby’s world. Goofy, playful, and mischievous Ruby is fully dimensional, as she has shown her bravery during the many hardships of her young life. Applegate deftly tempers themes of grief and loss with compassion and humor as Ruby finds her place in the herd. The author’s note touches on climate change, the illegal ivory trade, and conservation efforts, but the highly emotive framing of the story through the memories of a bewildered baby elephant emphasizes the impact of lines such as “ ‘in Africa,’ I say softly, ‘there were bad people,’ ” without offering readers a nuanced understanding of the broader context that drives poaching.
Certain to steal hearts. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780063080089
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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