A debut whose slow beginning belies its powerful conclusion.
What is true strength? Tough girl Breanna is about to find out.
Sixth grader Breanna Woodruff has finally made some friends, 5 years after she and her mother moved to Beecham, 50 miles away from Detroit and the father they have a restraining order against. Making her mark as the gutsiest kid in school, Breanna cannot let the other kids find out how afraid she is of heights. Therefore, she is adamant that she will not be going to the sixth grade team-building camp that features a treetop obstacle course that fills her with terror. Her mother, however, has other ideas, and in due course, Breanna finds herself at camp, trying desperately to keep up her reputation. But the stunning natural beauty of the place, the wisdom of the camp counselors, and the lure of a softball game against mean girl Cami slowly take down Breanna’s protective defenses. Although the first half of the story repeats its main topics too often and the rote delineation of secondary characters’ personality traits substitutes for deep character development, the metaphors are refreshingly original, and the descriptions of the setting are keenly observed. The second half of the story perks up considerably, and the truly powerful denouement will not easily be forgotten. Impressively, the story’s conclusion delivers nuanced, hard-fought realizations on the natures of fear, friendship, and past traumas. Breanna is White; there is ethnic diversity among the secondary characters.
A debut whose slow beginning belies its powerful conclusion. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-79721-564-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story.
Leaving Brooklyn behind, Black math-whiz and puzzle lover Bree starts a new life in Florida, where she’ll be tossed into the deep end in more ways than one. Keeping her head above water may be the trickiest puzzle yet.
While her dad is busy working and training in IT, Bree struggles at first to settle into Enith Brigitha Middle School, largely due to the school’s preoccupation with swimming—from the accomplishments of its namesake, a Black Olympian from Curaçao, to its near victory at the state swimming championships. But Bree can’t swim. To illustrate her anxiety around this fact, the graphic novel’s bright colors give way to gray thought bubbles with thick, darkened outlines expressing Bree’s deepest fears and doubts. This poignant visual crowds some panels just as anxious feelings can crowd the thoughts of otherwise star students like Bree. Ultimately, learning to swim turns out to be easy enough with the help of a kind older neighbor—a Black woman with a competitive swimming past of her own as well as a rich and bittersweet understanding of Black Americans’ relationship with swimming—who explains to Bree how racist obstacles of the past can become collective anxiety in the present. To her surprise, Bree, with her newfound water skills, eventually finds herself on the school’s swim team, navigating competition, her anxiety, and new, meaningful relationships.
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-305677-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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