Katie’s mean treatment of a classmate results in expectable consequences. She meets with the principal, then weekly with a school counselor to learn more about “bullying behaviors.” To make up for the hurt she caused, she turns her journal of those meetings into a book about bullying, narrated in a believable first-person voice. Borrowing design features from the popular Wimpy Kids series—lined paper, doodles and a typeface that imitates hand printing—this surprisingly useful self-help title is clearly aimed at upper-elementary-school readers. Among the “quick facts” Katie quotes (from studies cited in the backmatter) is that 74 percent of eight to 11-year-olds report that bullying occurs in their schools. While Katie used words, body language and silence to bully her friend Monica, she also describes cyber-bullying and physical bullying. Her counselor’s six “empower tools” offer excellent responses beyond the well-meant but usually ineffective advice to ignore it, and she explains the difference between tattling—to hurt someone—and reporting—when someone is getting hurt. This fictional cure will resonate with its intended audience. (author’s note, recommended resources for adults and children. (Fiction. 8-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58246-309-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
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
With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded.
Tiny, sassy Bob the dog, friend of The One and Only Ivan(2012), returns to tell his tale.
Wisecracking Bob, who is a little bit Chihuahua among other things, now lives with his girl, Julia, and her parents. Happily, her father works at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary, the zoo where Bob’s two best friends, Ivan the gorilla and Ruby the elephant, live, so Bob gets to visit and catch up with them regularly. Due to an early betrayal, Bob doesn’t trust humans (most humans are good only for their thumbs); he fears he’s going soft living with Julia, and he’s certain he is a Bad Dog—as in “not a good representative of my species.” On a visit to the zoo with a storm threatening, Bob accidentally falls into the gorilla enclosure just as a tornado strikes. So that’s what it’s like to fly. In the storm’s aftermath, Bob proves to everyone (and finally himself) that there is a big heart in that tiny chest…and a brave one too. With this companion, Applegate picks up where her Newbery Medal winner left off, and fans will be overjoyed to ride along in the head of lovable, self-deprecating Bob on his storm-tossed adventure. His wry doggy observations and attitude are pitch perfect (augmented by the canine glossary and Castelao’s picture dictionary of dog postures found in the frontmatter). Gorilla Ivan described Julia as having straight, black hair in the previous title, and Castelao's illustrations in that volume showed her as pale-skinned. (Finished art not available for review.)
With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded. (afterword) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299131-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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