A charming adventure marred by its overwhelmingly paternalistic attitude to a disabled character
A nervous, routine-loving middle schooler finds a hotel that’s magically connected to doors all over the world.
Cam and Cass Kuhn live with Oma, their grandmother. Twelve years ago, when they were babies, their mother died and their father vanished. Cam broods over his “Worst Ways to Die” list (No. 52: a murder of grackles; No 340: flesh rot) and worries endlessly about his sister’s health. Cass has spina bifida, and Cameron is petrified that she’ll die at any moment. A chance magical encounter brings him to The Hotel Between, a hotel whose magical doors appear all over the world: in Cam’s own Dallas, in Budapest, in Dubai. Though Cam now has new, magical Worst Ways to Die on his list, he can’t ignore the strange connection between the Hotel and his long-lost father. Under the tutelage of Nico, a boy who works at the Hotel, Cam gets a probationary job at the Hotel himself. What’s the Hotel’s mysterious mission? Some notable funny touches help build a charming magical world, though the global travel tends toward the shallow and exotic. Worse, Cam’s focused on finding a magical cure for Cass even though Cass (who needs repeated rescue) doesn’t want one. Denotation of nonnormative characters—Nico has “bronze” skin, among other kids of color on staff—plus the twins’ Germanic heritage will likely lead readers to infer that Cam and Cass are likely white.
A charming adventure marred by its overwhelmingly paternalistic attitude to a disabled character . (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1697-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy.
Inventively tweaking a popular premise, Jensen pits two Incredibles-style families with superpowers against each other—until a new challenge rises to unite them.
The Johnsons invariably spit at the mere mention of their hated rivals, the Baileys. Likewise, all Baileys habitually shake their fists when referring to the Johnsons. Having long looked forward to getting a superpower so that he too can battle his clan’s nemeses, Rafter Bailey is devastated when, instead of being able to fly or something else cool, he acquires the “power” to strike a match on soft polyester. But when hated classmate Juanita Johnson turns up newly endowed with a similarly bogus power and, against all family tradition, they compare notes, it becomes clear that something fishy is going on. Both families regard themselves as the heroes and their rivals as the villains. Someone has been inciting them to fight each other. Worse yet, that someone has apparently developed a device that turns real superpowers into silly ones. Teaching themselves on the fly how to get past their prejudice and work together, Rafter, his little brother, Benny, and Juanita follow a well-laid-out chain of clues and deductions to the climactic discovery of a third, genuinely nefarious family, the Joneses, and a fiendishly clever scheme to dispose of all the Baileys and Johnsons at once. Can they carry the day?
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-220961-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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