Nate will sing and dance his way right into readers’ hearts. This is an encore performance that will leave them standing in...
Goodbye, Jankburg…hello, Broadway! Thirteen-year-old Nate Foster is back (Better Nate Than Ever, 2013) in all his hilarious, vulnerable and heartwarming glory and headed “home” to the Great White Way.
Cast as Alien Number Seven and the understudy to E.T.’s understudy in the hotly anticipated E.T.: The Musical, Nate is prepared to do whatever it takes to make his dreams come true—even if it means a lot more cardio than he’d ever imagined. Nate navigates the rocky terrain of pushy child stars, stage momzillas and secret admirers with a wit and charm well beyond his years. Readers of the first book will be delighted at the continuation of Nate’s practice of substituting names of Broadway flops as swearwords, which he kindly explains for the uninitiated. While humor is clearly one of Federle’s strengths, what sets this novel apart is how beautifully he explores Nate’s vulnerabilities, particularly with regard to his sexuality, his family and his own self-esteem. Lines such as, “I never sit when I’m on the phone with Dad, because it’s the only time I get to practice what it feels like to stand up to him,” speak volumes about Nate and will surely resonate with any reader who has ever felt out of place in his own home…or in his own skin.
Nate will sing and dance his way right into readers’ hearts. This is an encore performance that will leave them standing in the aisles. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4693-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 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.
