An appealing celebration of theater kid passion.
Twelve-year-old April Xue has a passion for acting, so she’s crushed when she auditions for her middle school play but doesn’t land a part due to her disability.
April, who has bilateral vocal cord paralysis, wears a tracheostomy tube that allows her to breathe. One day, she overhears director Ms. Rooney discussing her in the teachers’ lounge. Ms. Rooney says April shouldn’t be on stage—the tube is too loud, and it might fall out. April becomes determined to get what’s rightfully hers. She lies to her family, saying she’s gotten the lead role; in reality, she’s a stage assistant, but she plots to prove she’s a better actor than the actual lead, Zahra Khan. Zahra and April grow close even as April’s new theater community pulls her away from her best friend, Ruby Zhang. The novel details how a play goes from rehearsal to opening night. April is a well-drawn character who’s ambitious and talented. She deals with periodic ableism, but she rejects the label brave: “Simply breathing the same way she had always breathed—that wasn’t brave. That was just the way she lived.” She later discovers that Ms. Rooney’s reasons for underestimating her may have been more complicated than they at first seemed. April’s close-knit Chinese American family and community are well-observed, and she is, refreshingly, allowed to be cutthroat and a realistically bad friend who experiences growth over the course of the story.
An appealing celebration of theater kid passion. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 16, 2026
ISBN: 9798217030286
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
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
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