Only for those readers who care more about romance and the gimmick than plot and character. (Interactive fiction. 10-12)
Readers guide a middle schooler to various romance possibilities in this gentle series opener that’s similar to a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
Tara Singh helps out at her family’s sweet shop, Mmmumbai, where famous Bollywood actress Preeti Chandran chooses to order her wedding cake and sweets. Tara, more interested in Broadway than Bollywood, plans to audition for Dorothy in the school production of The Wizard of Oz and is faced with interesting dilemmas that readers will decide: Should Tara go to the audition or to Preeti Chandran’s wedding? Should she rehearse with Hiro or go to Preeti’s movie with Rohan? The cast is diverse. Tara is of Indian origin (depicted on the cover with dark hair and brown skin), as is childhood friend Rohan (could he be more than annoying-older-brother material?). Best friend Yael Lewis is Jewish (whose bat mitzvah anchors companion title Yael and the Party of the Year). Meanwhile, is Tara’s forever crush and BMOC Hiro Nakahara (with cued Japanese heritage) really interested in Tara? Or will quiet, shy, and clever Desmond Flynn, a white boy with blue eyes and freckles, be the one with whom Tara initiates a brief kiss? The book is heavy on teen tropes, from texting and emojis to eye rolls and air quotes. Characters, however, both primary and secondary, are not well-fleshed-out, parts of the book are repetitive, and the story on the whole is not memorable.
Only for those readers who care more about romance and the gimmick than plot and character. (Interactive fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: May 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7568-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
An exploration of family bonds that reaches for profound themes but doesn’t always trust readers to grasp them independently.
A boy struggling with his blended family discovers a tree with the power to transform his stepbrother.
Twelve-year-old Denver feels unmoored by his 8-year-old stepbrother Harlan, who constantly breaks things and demands attention. When Denver meets Spiro, an ancient ponderosa pine with magical abilities, he accepts Spiro’s offer to temporarily transform Harlan into a tree—only to discover that everyone, including his parents, has forgotten Harlan’s very existence. Denver finds an ally in Mae, a local girl with synesthesia who perceives people through color halos and creates unusual ice cream flavors. As Denver works to reverse the transformation, he learns that Spiro became isolated from the forest’s root network after surviving a devastating fire, paralleling Denver’s own emotional disconnect from his changing family. The forest setting provides rich sensory details, and Mae’s unique perspective adds depth to the magical elements. The metaphor connecting tree root networks to human relationships occasionally feels heavy-handed, however, with characters explicitly drawing comparisons that readers might prefer to discover themselves. Denver’s character growth from resentment to acceptance feels authentic, though his transformation happens somewhat rapidly. For the most part, physical descriptors are minimal.
An exploration of family bonds that reaches for profound themes but doesn’t always trust readers to grasp them independently. (author’s note) (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9780593860304
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cinematic, over-the-top decadence, a tense race against time, and lessons on what’s truly valuable.
A reward of $5,000,000 almost ruins everything for two seventh graders.
On a class trip to New York City, Felix and Benji find a wallet belonging to social media billionaire Laura Friendly. Benji, a well-off, chaotic kid with learning disabilities, swipes $20 from the wallet before they send it back to its owner. Felix, a poor, shy, rule-follower, reluctantly consents. So when Laura Friendly herself arrives to give them a reward for the returned wallet, she’s annoyed. To teach her larcenous helpers a lesson, Laura offers them a deal: a $20,000 college scholarship or slightly over $5 million cash—but with strings attached. The boys must spend all the money in 30 days, with legal stipulations preventing them from giving anything away, investing, or telling anyone about it. The glorious windfall quickly grows to become a chore and then a torment as the boys appear increasingly selfish and irresponsible to the adults in their lives. They rent luxury cars, hire a (wonderful) philosophy undergrad as a chauffeur, take their families to Disney World, and spend thousands on in-app game purchases. Yet, surrounded by hedonistically described piles of loot and filthy lucre, the boys long for simpler fundamentals. The absorbing spending spree reads like a fun family film, gleefully stuffed with the very opulence it warns against. Major characters are White.
Cinematic, over-the-top decadence, a tense race against time, and lessons on what’s truly valuable. (mathematical explanations) (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-17525-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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