A Brooklyn teenager’s summer plans take an unwelcome turn when her mother sends her away for a year in this chatty, fluent tale, a real change of pace from Chambers’s angry, brutal memoir, Mama’s Girl (1996). Marisol and Magdalena, inseparable since birth, look forward to a delicious summer followed by a triumphant tour through their last year in junior high. It’s not to be; despite pleas and tears, Marisol finds herself on a plane to Panama City when her mother decides to attend nursing school full-time. Born in the US, Marisol knows her mother’s homeland only through stories and old photographs; her initial apprehension evaporates in the warm welcome she receives from her abuela, and in her instant acceptance at school. Both in Brooklyn and in Panama, Marisol is rich in friends and relatives, all (but for one hostile cousin) loving and supportive; with the help of Ana, a neighbor, and RubÇn, her first boyfriend, she loses her initial shyness as quickly as she improves her shaky Spanish. Magda remains a part-time character, and some subplots—notably, Marisol’s carefully developed but suddenly abandoned determination to find her estranged father—are left hanging, but Marisol moves between her two cultures with ease, and her Panama is a sunnier place than the tense, divided country of Adele Griffin’s Rainy Season (1996). (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-7868-0437-8
Page Count: 141
Publisher: Disney-Jump at the Sun
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The poster boy for relentless mischief-makers everywhere, first encountered in No, David! (1998), gives his weary mother a rest by going to school. Naturally, he’s tardy, and that’s but the first in a long string of offenses—“Sit down, David! Keep your hands to yourself! PAY ATTENTION!”—that culminates in an afterschool stint. Children will, of course, recognize every line of the text and every one of David’s moves, and although he doesn’t exhibit the larger- than-life quality that made him a tall-tale anti-hero in his first appearance, his round-headed, gap-toothed enthusiasm is still endearing. For all his disruptive behavior, he shows not a trace of malice, and it’ll be easy for readers to want to encourage his further exploits. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-48087-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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