A disappointing second outing in a series that began with promise.
Hackathon participation is jeopardized by a scheduling conflict.
Latina sixth-grader Sophia Torres is excited about her first hackathon: an all-day coding event with prizes. Each team receives components and modules to build a robot to attempt a maze, so the girls from The Friendship Code (2017) talk algorithms and pseudocode to plan out how they’ll make their Rockin’ Robots entry stand out. Sophia hopes her busy mother will be able to come support her, but instead her parents drop a bombshell: the night before the hackathon registration deadline, they tell her that she must miss it to babysit her sisters (an 8-year-old on the autism spectrum, a 5-year-old, and a 2-year-old). The hackathon has a strict, plot-determined rule: if any registered participant can’t attend, the whole team must withdraw. Sophia gambles her team’s eligibility on her ability to convince her babysitter-averse parents to compromise. After blaming Sophia (saying she should have told the team sooner), they tease her with the possibility of a babysitter: her father gives her an extensive list of chores she must complete for him to “consider” letting her go. Once the team learns, they surprise Sophia by helping her complete her domestic duties and arranging for the babysitter so she can participate. Evidently the moral’s about asking for help; regressive ideas and plot-driven, questionable parenting are never addressed. The diverse cast also includes white, black, and Asian teammates as well as a new-to-the-team girl from Pakistan (who, curiously, gives their robot an Arabic name rather than, say, an Urdu one) and a dark-skinned boy Sophia has an age-appropriate crush on.
A disappointing second outing in a series that began with promise. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54252-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Certain to steal hearts.
In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary.
She’s apprehensive about her Tuskday, a rite of passage for young elephants when she’ll give a speech in front of the rest of the herd. Luckily, she can confide in her Uncle Ivan, who is next door in Gorilla World, and Uncle Bob, the dog who lives nearby with human friend Julia. Ruby was born in an unspecified part of Africa, later ending up on display in the mall, where she met Ivan, Bob, and Julia. The unexpected arrival of someone from Ruby’s past life on the savanna revives memories both warmly nostalgic and deeply traumatic. An elephant glossary and Castelao’s charming, illustrated guide to elephant body language help immerse readers in Ruby’s world. Goofy, playful, and mischievous Ruby is fully dimensional, as she has shown her bravery during the many hardships of her young life. Applegate deftly tempers themes of grief and loss with compassion and humor as Ruby finds her place in the herd. The author’s note touches on climate change, the illegal ivory trade, and conservation efforts, but the highly emotive framing of the story through the memories of a bewildered baby elephant emphasizes the impact of lines such as “ ‘in Africa,’ I say softly, ‘there were bad people,’ ” without offering readers a nuanced understanding of the broader context that drives poaching.
Certain to steal hearts. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780063080089
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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