Cynical inner-city seventh graders are challenged by an odd idea from a math teacher. Frustrated that his students do not seem the least bit interested in learning, Mr. Collins proposes a contest to build the world’s largest tetrahedron. Several students show up for the first meeting, a few because they want to do something new. One picks math club over failing the class and another does not have anywhere else to go. Armed with reams of paper and glue sticks, the students begin building the huge structure piece by piece. However, the rainbow hued composition is not the only thing they are gluing together. As the weeks pass, they realize that they are forming something much more than a claim to a world record. They are building their lives. Recipes for barbeque sauce, cake and cornbread separate chapters, told in several alternating voices. Smart and fast-paced, this story inspires as well as entertains. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-316-11524-X
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A story of perseverance and love.
Onyx has a secret.
It’s 1970, and following the death of his grandmother, Onyx, a 12-year-old Black boy, is left living alone with his mother, who has early onset dementia. Fearing losing Mama, too, he keeps her condition a secret from everyone and instead vows to make sure that he keeps up the show of everything being OK at home. His days are filled with completing chores, leaving sticky notes for Mama to read when she wakes up, attending Catholic school, and catching up with his cousins and other relatives when he can. Onyx relies on the knowledge passed on to him by his grandmother to manage their Alexandria, Virginia, home—shopping for groceries and preparing simple meals for himself and his mother. As her condition begins to worsen, however, he desperately tries to find a way to help Mama get her memories back. Facing the looming threat of a home visit by social workers, Onyx takes bigger and bigger risks in his attempts to return his mother to her former self. Written in verse through the eyes of a child, the novel tackles complex topics honestly yet hopefully. As readers follow Onyx in his endeavors to help his mother, they’re also given a glimpse into being a young Black boy who, for all his troubles in life, has just as many joyful moments with his family and friends.
A story of perseverance and love. (author’s note) (Verse historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781250908780
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
McDunn’s tale of growing beyond a toxic childhood friendship will ring painfully true for many a reader. (Fiction. 8-12)
It’s tough to stand up to the queen.
Anxious Meg has always deferred to bold, popular Beatrix—knowing, unhappily, that Beatrix will quickly freeze her out if she doesn’t. Beatrix dictates what electives the two will share, what childhood traditions they will and won’t retain, and what Meg must do or say to retain her favor. When Meg is one of four seventh graders to be accepted into the competitive science elective, the very thought of telling Beatrix that they will no longer share dance brings unparalleled terror. However, it is eccentric, bee-obsessed new girl Hazel who relates that ill news at a more ill-fated neighborhood party, invoking Beatrix’s immediate animosity and Meg’s warring admiration and consternation. As Meg and Hazel begin to forge a connection through a science project featuring Hazel’s bees, Meg must find the courage to face down her failing friendship with Beatrix, her town’s (and her own) prejudices against the bees, and, ultimately, herself. Meg’s first-person narration is emotive and candid, maintaining sympathy even as her occasional hypocrisy provokes outrage. Middle school drama, including concerns regarding the legitimacy of its power, is tenderly treated, and the connections between characters—family, friends, classmates, and teachers—feel refreshingly genuine. The novel adheres to a white default, with some ethnic diversity among the supporting cast.
McDunn’s tale of growing beyond a toxic childhood friendship will ring painfully true for many a reader. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68119-751-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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