A-plus entertainment.
Three schoolmates recount their eerie encounters at a long-abandoned orphanage, making for a peculiar “what we did this summer” school project.
Aldo Pfefferkuchen, Pen Q. Blaisewell, and Jasper Yi struggle to find interesting things to include in their collective summer journal until a suspiciously pale boy leads them to a moldering building that once housed an orphanage. The trio should be terrified, but the ghost children—yes, there’s a group—need help. It’s weird that they appear young since most are the spirits of orphans who had moved away and died at ripe old ages. However, they were recently drawn back and trapped there by a poltergeist. Even stranger, the boys discover that the poltergeist is the toddler ghost of a bitter woman who died at over 100 years of age. A diarist and sufferer of verbal diarrhea, Aldo is the designated typist for their group project. His wit shines through as he faithfully describes his friends’ personalities and their wildly funny disagreements and dilemmas. It all makes for a laugh-out-loud, high-action read, complete with shrieking and notes in crayon from a frustrated entity trying to communicate about a mystery involving an inheritance and warped family history. Pen’s “Useful Index” appears at the end—a humorous nod to a running joke about his fondness for indexes. Oddities abound, as do astute observations about family dynamics and friendships, especially between the boys. Jasper’s surname cues him as Korean American; the other boys are minimally described.
A-plus entertainment. (Paranormal. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66591-610-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Poignant and heartwarming.
Zephyrina the cat, the “Robin Hood of felines,” rescues discarded toys so they can have new lives.
Zephyrina brings toys back to the apartment she shares with Elizaveta and her daughter, Dasha, refugees from war-torn Ukraine. Dasha reconditions Zephyrina’s rescues and sets them outside for three days, just in case they have owners who want to reclaim them. Afterward, they join the other toys in the parlor—the Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured. Dasha and Elizaveta don’t know that the toys are sentient. At midnight they abandon their rigid daytime postures to cavort and play, overseen by their leader, Pocket, a tiny mascot bear made to comfort soldiers during World War I. One night, Zephyrina brings back a dirty old bear, and Pocket is astounded. The new arrival, Berwon, might come from a lost shipment of the first-ever stuffed bears, sent from Germany to the U.S. in 1903—and if so, he’s worth a fortune. In the ensuing antics, the unpleasant villain Picky Vicky covets Berwon, and a kind museum curator does, too, but for different reasons. Applegate’s writing is exquisitely nuanced; she couches profound themes in accessible language that depicts relatable situations. Gentle, generous Elizaveta and Dasha poignantly underscore the human impact of wars. Santoso’s enchanting, delicate, black-and-white illustrations bring the timeless feeling of a classic to this hopeful, humanizing story of the distressed looking out for each other.
Poignant and heartwarming. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781250904362
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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