An entertainingly spooky series opener with appealing camaraderie among its characters.
Mourning the recent loss of her grandmother, an Indian Canadian tween and her friends become responsible for helping spirits find peace.
Twelve-year-old Raveena, along with her friends Aiko (who’s Japanese Canadian), Blair (who has Greek and Italian ancestry), and Lillian (who’s cued Black), are zapped by a rotary phone that Raveena’s mother purchased from an antique shop. The phone then immediately rings with a call from a spirit, their friend Marisol’s grandmother, whom the girls help to move on. Inside the base of the phone, they find a tiny old book labeled “Guidebook for Guardians”—and after consulting with local psychic Tía Paola, Raveena and friends learn that they can serve as Guardians. The kids create a business, Spirit Service, to help people contact the deceased. They’re hoping to win their school’s business competition and earn enough to help fund the arts program, which has become a victim of budget cuts. Then Grandmama calls Raveena and asks her to retrieve an item hidden somewhere in their town of Hollows’ Peak—an item that would have a tremendous impact—but the relationship between Raveena and her friends becomes strained while a greater threat grows. The evenly paced narrative artfully reveals the phone’s complicated history with its supernatural ties to the town, its founder, and a pivotal historic event. The authors deftly touch upon issues of grief and friendship before closing with some intriguing twists.
An entertainingly spooky series opener with appealing camaraderie among its characters. (map) (Paranormal. 8-12)Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781665955171
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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