Thoughtful, heartfelt, and oh-so-relatable.
A tween navigates the trials and tribulations of middle school.
Ami (“pronounced AH-mee”) Hendricks loves working with her best friend, Ivy, who reads Black, on the movie they’re sure will be a blockbuster. When sixth grade begins, Ami finds herself in a different school-assigned cohort than her elementary school friends and desperately missing Ivy. The new kids tease her, calling her “Tomato” due to her propensity to blush, which is embarrassingly obvious with her light skin. Feeling awkward, Ami spends her days alone with her daydreams. When she’s picked by the popular kids to work on a group project, Ami jumps at the chance, even though it seems too good to be true. Things don’t turn out as she hoped, and Ami, disheartened and even more isolated, must find a way out of her oppressive cloud of numbness and despair by setting boundaries, taking personal accountability, and articulating her needs. Storyboards from Ami and Ivy’s science-fiction movie project are interspersed throughout, reflecting the ups and downs of their friendship and transition to middle school. Cartoonist Warren’s evocative young readers’ debut captures all the discomfiture of early adolescence and how social stumbles can turn into large roadblocks. With its keen and gently configured lens focused on social trials and a personal health challenge plus a visually stylish and pleasantly familiar artistic style, this work will feel welcoming to fans of authors of genre standouts like Raina Telgemeier, Kayla Miller, and Jennifer L. Holm.
Thoughtful, heartfelt, and oh-so-relatable. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9798217004089
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
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
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
