An affirmative anthropomorphic story emphasizing perseverance and practice.
A bear learns to skate and defeats a bully in a race in author/illustrator Wilberforce’s debut picture book.
When rollerblading rabbit Kari says that Barry is too big to skate fast, the brown bear is determined to prove her wrong. But when he attempts, Barry falls and feels humiliated as other animals laugh. Kari tells Barry that he’s too slow to race her. Barry feels dejected, and a skilled skater monkey named Fast Tommy offers to help him train. With Tommy’s advice and encouragement, Barry gains confidence. His skating improves, and he masters a challenging move called the “Power Boost,” in which he picks up speed by dipping and then soaring high. He later wins the race by using the move. Barry is elated, and Tommy is proud of his pupil. Readers will root for the affable protagonist’s success as he faces ups and downs in his skating and overcomes doubts. Tommy’s instructions, which emphasize focusing on learning instead of on the unknown outcome, may be helpful to children with their own athletic goals. The full-color, cartoonish illustrations include comic book–like details, such as puffs of dust indicating fast movement and panels showing Barry’s skating progress. Some words, like “SMACK!!” are emphasized in capital letters that make for easy reading.
An affirmative anthropomorphic story emphasizing perseverance and practice.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985686630
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read.
Will a bully always be a bully?
That’s the question eighth-grade football captain Chase Ambrose has to answer for himself after a fall from his roof leaves him with no memory of who and what he was. When he returns to Hiawassee Middle School, everything and everyone is new. The football players can hardly wait for him to come back to lead the team. Two, Bear Bratsky and Aaron Hakimian, seem to be special friends, but he’s not sure what they share. Other classmates seem fearful; he doesn’t know why. Temporarily barred from football because of his concussion, he finds a new home in the video club and, over time, develops a new reputation. He shoots videos with former bullying target Brendan Espinoza and even with Shoshanna Weber, who’d hated him passionately for persecuting her twin brother, Joel. Chase voluntarily continues visiting the nursing home where he’d been ordered to do community service before his fall, making a special friend of a decorated Korean War veteran. As his memories slowly return and he begins to piece together his former life, he’s appalled. His crimes were worse than bullying. Will he become that kind of person again? Set in the present day and told in the alternating voices of Chase and several classmates, this finding-your-middle-school-identity story explores provocative territory. Aside from naming conventions, the book subscribes to the white default.
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-05377-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that.
Beatrice Zinker is a kinder, gentler Judy Moody.
Beatrice doesn’t want to be fit in a box. Her first word was “WOW,” not “Mom.” She does her best thinking upside down and prefers to dress like a ninja. Like Judy Moody, she has patient parents and a somewhat annoying younger brother. (She also has a perfectly ordinary older sister.) Beatrice spends all summer planning a top-secret spy operation complete with secret codes and a secret language (pig Latin). But on the first day of third grade, her best friend, Lenny (short for Eleanor), shows up in a dress, with a new friend who wants to play veterinarian at recess. Beatrice, essentially a kind if somewhat quirky kid, struggles to see the upside of the situation and ends up with two friends instead of one. Line drawings on almost every spread add to the humor and make the book accessible to readers who might otherwise balk at its 160 pages. Thankfully, the rhymes in the text do not continue past the first chapter. Children will enjoy the frequent puns and Beatrice’s preference for climbing trees and hanging upside down. The story drifts dangerously close to pedantry when Beatrice asks for advice from a grandmotherly neighbor but is saved by likable characters and upside-down cake. Beatrice seems to be white; Lenny’s surname, Santos, suggests that she may be Latina; their school is a diverse one.
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that. (Fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-6738-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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