A warm, engaging story that will give young readers a detailed and informative look at early-20th-century farm life.
In Roberts’ fiction book for kids, Allie recounts his first day of third grade, navigating farm chores, homework, and a school bully.
Allie’s first day of third grade unfolds against the backdrop of a hardworking Oklahoma family who live on a small farm in the late 1930s. The Dedication features photographs of the author’s grandfather and father (Roberts’ inspiration), which establish a strong sense of place and set the scene. Told in his lively first-person voice, the story follows Allie, who prefers to go by “A.J.,” as he balances early-morning chores with the excitement of new cowboy boots and seeing his friend Benji, coupled with the dread of facing Elijah, the school bully who mocks A.J.’s name (he says “Allie” is a girl’s name). A.J. is determined to be brave this year, and his growing courage shows in a game of kickball (helped by his new boots) and in a budding friendship with Layla, which softens Elijah’s hold on A.J.’s day. Back home, A.J. recounts his day to Jon the farmhand before diving into a long list of chores: polishing boots, milking the goat and cows, and mucking out Lady Star’s stall before taking her for a ride. A moment of inattention sends him tumbling from his horse into a muddy pond, leaving him with extra chores and unfinished homework. Under his mother’s firm guidance, he finishes up his first day of third grade tired but content. The follow-up to 2025’s Just Call Me Pardner (the second in a series about A.J.), this book offers an evocative glimpse of 1930s life and shines brightest in its warm, detailed portrayal of A.J’s daily responsibilities, as well as his relationships with Jon, his mother, and Lady Star. Its charm and historical flavor are occasionally undercut by repetitive writing, especially the constant references to “daydreaming,” which appear so often that the lesson about staying focused could have been delivered more succinctly. Marble’s stylized illustrations, featuring a succession of doe-eyed characters, are endearing and deftly capture the story’s tone.
A warm, engaging story that will give young readers a detailed and informative look at early-20th-century farm life.Pub Date: March 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781966675686
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Solander Press
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale.
After a tsunami devastates their habitat in the Salish Sea, a young orca and her brother embark on a remarkable adventure.
Vega’s matriarchal family expects her to become a hunter and wayfinder, with her younger brother, Deneb, protecting and supporting her. Invited to guide her family to their Gathering Place to hunt salmon, Vega’s underwater miscalculations endanger them all, and an embarrassed Vega questions whether she should be a wayfinder. When the baby sister she hoped would become her life companion is stillborn, a distraught Vega carries the baby away to a special resting place, shocking her grieving family. Dispatched to find his missing sister, Deneb locates Vega in the midst of a terrible tsunami. To escape the waters polluted by shattered boats, Vega leads Deneb into unfamiliar open sea. Alone and hungry, the young siblings encounter a spectacular giant whale and travel briefly with shark-hunting orcas. Trusting her instincts and gaining emotional strength from contemplating the vastness of the sky, Vega knows she must lead her brother home and help save her surviving family. In alternating first-person voices, Vega and Deneb tell their harrowing story, engaging young readers while educating them about the marine ecosystem. Realistic black-and-white illustrations enhance the maritime setting.
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale. (maps, wildlife facts, tribes of the Salish Sea watershed, environmental and geographical information, how to help orcas, author’s note, artist’s note, resources) (Animal fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299592-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
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