For reluctant readers not drawn to genre fiction, this story may speak to them for a little while.
Snapchat takes center stage in this Disney-esque drama about middle school girl friendships and a Snapstreak competition.
A local TV station announces a contest for the longest Snapstreak between two students from different schools. The reward is a concert by the popular boy band Boys Being Dudes. Black eighth-grader Vee, who will soon be moving to a new school, courageously asks Gwynneth, its white queen bee, to be her partner in the contest. Vee and Gwynneth are leading the competition when Vee sustains a concussion playing lacrosse and must give up screen time. Vee’s best friends, Megan, a white girl, and Lulu, a Latina, take over her cellphone for her—and things go awry quickly. The frothy story is told from multiple points of view, each girl’s voice flagged with distinctive borders. Unfortunately, all four voices sound similar. The integration of this ubiquitous app into the story mimics real life, with all the distractions and attractions in the world of young teens, and the inaccurate assumptions the girls form via Snapchat make for a strong message. Even though Snapchat legally requires users to be 13, this book for preteens assumes familiarity with its conventions. Luckily, emoji-speak and acronyms are kept to a minimum. The content may already be dated, as the ephemeral Snapchat “story” function has overtaken “chatting.”
For reluctant readers not drawn to genre fiction, this story may speak to them for a little while. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-71346-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato.
The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.
Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle–grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough. Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.
On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11866-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map.
A girl who delights in the macabre harnesses her inherited supernatural ability.
It’s not just her stark white hair that makes 11-year-old Zee Puckett stand out in nowheresville Knobb’s Ferry. She’s a storyteller, a Mary Shelley fangirl, and is being raised by her 21-year-old high school dropout sister while their father looks for work upstate (cue the wayward glances from the affluent demography). Don’t pity her, because Zee doesn’t acquiesce to snobbery, bullying, or pretty much anything that confronts her. But a dog with bleeding eyes in a cemetery gives her pause—momentarily—because the beast is just the tip of the wicked that has this way come to town. Time to get some help from ghosts. The creepy supernatural current continues throughout, intermingled with very real forays into bullying (Zee won’t stand for it or for the notion that good girls need to act nice), body positivity, socio-economic status and social hierarchy, and mental health. This debut from a promising writer involves a navigation of caste systems, self-esteem, and villainy that exists in an interesting world with intriguing characters, but they receive a flat, two-dimensional treatment that ultimately makes the book feel like one is learning a ho-hum lesson in morality. Zee is presumably White (as is her rich-girl nemesis–cum-comrade, Nellie). Her best friend, Elijah, is cued as Black. Warning: this just might spur frenzied requests for Frankenstein.
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map. (Supernatural. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304460-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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