A vanilla-flavored depiction of middle school for kids who aren’t there yet.
Exuberant Emma, back after series opener Ask Emma (2018), is determined to be one of her middle school’s representatives to the National Student Congress.
But first, she has to prove to her principal that she can keep her (strong) opinions to herself for a full 48 hours, not easy for a person who thrives on dishing out advice. Although Emma manages to succeed—barely—in the process she alienates her two best friends by not taking sides to settle an argument and then posting an ill-conceived message about them on her popular blog. The girls retaliate by immediately beginning to exclude her from their three-way friendship. Some pithy advice from her mom helps Emma regroup and restore the peace, and she’s off to the stress-filled Student Congress in D.C., where she and her favorite boy, Jackson, must debate in front of a huge crowd. Her spontaneity and enthusiasm prove essential, of course. The white-default young teens model lots of problem-solving skills as they navigate common if rather trivial issues of their age group. Characters suffer from a lack of depth, overreacting to minor provocations but then being just as easily placated by equally minor interventions, reducing most of the conflict to insignificance. A long chapter of advice on how to start a mother-daughter book club follows the tale.
A vanilla-flavored depiction of middle school for kids who aren’t there yet. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0648-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Yellow Jacket
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers.
First volume of a planned three, this edited version of an ongoing online serial records a middle-school everykid’s triumphs and (more often) tribulations through the course of a school year.
Largely through his own fault, mishaps seem to plague Greg at every turn, from the minor freak-outs of finding himself permanently seated in class between two pierced stoners and then being saddled with his mom for a substitute teacher, to being forced to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate who has invited him to view his “secret freckle.” Presented in a mix of legible “hand-lettered” text and lots of simple cartoon illustrations with the punch lines often in dialogue balloons, Greg’s escapades, unwavering self-interest and sardonic commentary are a hoot and a half.
Certain to elicit both gales of giggles and winces of sympathy (not to mention recognition) from young readers. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-9313-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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