Insightful and riveting.
Rowan Monahan lives in a small town where neighbors care about each other—but then the Caplan family arrives.
They move into a large, newly constructed home (“How’s that going to fit in with this traditional neighborhood?”) on the site of an old farmhouse. Fraught incidents spark a feud: Ms. Caplan accidentally damages Mrs. Monahan’s car; Rowan, who waits tables at his family’s pub, stumbles, sending a hot baked potato flying into 14-year-old Gemma Caplan’s head; and both moms run for the one open seat on the school board. Friendship Prairie’s residents become less friendly as their campaigns get nastier. Gemma’s triplet brothers, who are star football players, clash on and off the field with Rowan’s jealous cousin, Ty. Meanwhile, Rowan, who stutters and has processing delays, and autistic Gemma, who’s nonspeaking and uses a tablet to communicate, see beyond the feud and grow to care for each other. On the first day of school, the ninth graders, who are cued white, accidentally meet in an old darkroom that later becomes a safe space for getting to know each other. Told in Rowan’s and Gemma’s alternating, clearly differentiated first-person voices, the book contains echoes of Romeo and Juliet as it follows their struggles to reframe their families’ hostile impressions of one another. Pla skillfully and concisely conveys great depth as she explores the characters’ emotions and the theme of whether words are really necessary for communication.
Insightful and riveting. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780063395886
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: yesterday
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 TO SCREEN
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
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