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THE SECRET LIFE OF LINCOLN JONES

Name: THE SECRET LIFE OF LINCOLN JONES
Author: Wendelin Van Draanen
ISBN: 978-1-101-94040-2

by Wendelin Van Draanen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 25, 2016

Readers will love Lincoln Jones.

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Eleven-year-old Lincoln Jones has seen a lot in his time and is struggling to make sense of it all and still fit in in sixth grade.

Almost a year ago, Lincoln escaped with his mother from her abusive boyfriend and moved from the South to a new town where people don’t drawl and an apartment with sagging floors, no heat, and a dying stranger next door. Now he’s the new boy at school, suffering taunts on the playground and the school bus. At Brookside nursing home, where his mother works and where he spends a lot of time, he witnesses food fights, a naked dancing woman, a zombie in a wheelchair, a vampire who seems to be killing off her roommates, and illness and death. It’s enough to make him retreat into his comic books and made-up stories of superheroes, but he comes to realize who the real heroes in his life are and that “real folks around me had stories I’d been completely blind to.” With the help of a nosy girl, a newfound friend, and a school writing assignment, he begins to find his place in the world. Van Draanen’s engaging story is characterized by clever writing (narrator Lincoln drops his G’s), a palpable affection for her characters, and a deep understanding of what’s important about life. Characters’ races go unspecified, leaving readers to make their own inferences.

Readers will love Lincoln Jones. (Fiction. 8-12)

Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-101-94040-2

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: June 27, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
GRAVITY IS BRINGING ME DOWN
by Wendelin Van Draanen ; illustrated by Cornelia Li

- BOOK REVIEW
MR. WHISKERS AND THE SHENANIGAN SISTERS
by Wendelin Van Draanen ; illustrated by Wendelin Van Draanen

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PEACH REBELLION
by Wendelin Van Draanen

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CLUES TO THE UNIVERSE

by Christina Li ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2021

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.

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An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.

Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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NUMBER THE STARS

by Lois Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1989

A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...

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The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.

Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.

A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)