Online gaming, family expectations, friendship, and honesty, explored with balance, humor, and insight.
Comedian Ranganathan and co-author Day present a British tween gamer’s journey of self-discovery.
Yasmin Bandara learns, thanks to her best mate, Zane, that she’s a prodigy at GoalPro7, an online soccer simulator. GoalPro7 is electrifying compared to The Monkey House, which “not-very-secretly taught you maths or science while you did something borderline fun” and is the only game her parents allow Yasmin and her 10-year-old brother, Dinesh, to play. Seeing her genius, Zane loans Yasmin his console, and thus her deception of her parents begins. Soon, as a high scorer, Yasmin is invited to compete in esports conventions for both games—taking place in Birmingham, England, on the same day. The tension peaks as Yasmin must decide how to juggle these competing events, weighing commitment to her Monkey Meet-up team against her desire to excel at GoalPro7. When her parents discover her deception, they forbid her to speak to Zane or do any gaming, so Yasmin focuses on studying to fulfill her parents’ expectations that she become a doctor—until Zane makes a discovery that turns Yasmin’s fortunes around. Despite the book's slightly one-dimensional supporting characters, some overly convenient scenarios, and a too-tidy ending, readers will easily relate with the struggles of the multifaceted protagonist, who presents South Asian. The illustrations are enjoyably playful, and the fast pace and conversational tone give the work reluctant reader appeal.
Online gaming, family expectations, friendship, and honesty, explored with balance, humor, and insight. (Fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9780241493281
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Puffin/Penguin Random House UK
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Quirky and imaginative—postmodern storytelling at its best.
Friendly curiosity and a gift for naming earn a polar bear an assortment of (mostly animal) friends, adventures, mishaps, and discoveries.
Arriving at a northern ocean, Duane spies a shipwreck. Swimming out to investigate, he meets its lone occupant, C.C., a learned snowy owl whose noble goal is acquiring knowledge to apply “toward the benefit of all.” Informing Duane that he’s a polar bear, she points out a nearby cave that might suit him—it even has a mattress. Adding furnishings from the wreck—the grandfather clock’s handless, but who needs to tell time when it’s always now?—he meets a self-involved musk ox, entranced by his own reflection, who’s delighted when Duane names him “Handsome.” As he comes to understand, then appreciate their considerable diversity, Duane brings out the best in his new friends. C.C., who has difficulty reading emotions and dislikes being touched, evokes the autism spectrum. Magic, a bouncy, impulsive arctic fox, manifests ADHD. Major Puff, whose proud puffin ancestry involves courageous retreats from danger, finds a perfect companion in Twitch, a risk-aware, common-sensical hare. As illustrated, Sun Girl, a human child, appears vaguely Native, and Squint, a painter, white, but they’re sui generis: The Canadian author avoids referencing human culture. The art conveys warmth in an icy setting; animal characters suggest beloved stuffed toys, gently reinforcing the message that friendship founded on tolerance breeds comfort and safety.
Quirky and imaginative—postmodern storytelling at its best. (Animal fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3341-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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