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PITCH PARTNERS

From the Eat Bugs series , Vol. 2

Well stocked with inspiration and savvy advice for budding business owners.

Growing pains and trust issues afflict two middle school entrepreneurs in this sequel to Project Startup (2021).

Part friendship story, part biofiction, and part marketing tool, this entry is closely modeled on the experiences of the co-authors—who, just like the protagonists Jaye Wu and Hallie Amberose, are growing an actual business selling chips made from crickets (even in the illustrations the sixth graders look remarkably like grown-up versions of D’Asaro and Wang). Hallie worries that her more detail-oriented partner is on the verge of abandoning her and returning to her popular crowd, a conflict that is easily resolved by mutual apologies and Jaye’s insistence that there’s nothing wrong with having more than one circle of friends. This storyline is woven into talking up the benefits of an entotarian diet and practical tips for business planning and promotion—creating an effective pitch to present at competitions, setting up a supply chain, making deals, coping with accidents and reversals, and advertising—all while staying true to the ideal of creating a sustainable, eco-friendly enterprise. The spirit of entrepreneurship gets further boosts from a list of real food companies founded by women and Alexander’s interview with her co-authors at the end. The two protagonists are Chinese American and White.

Well stocked with inspiration and savvy advice for budding business owners. (recipe, photos) (Fiction. 8-12)

Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-09619-2

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021

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CHARLOTTE'S WEB

The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...

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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

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TUCK EVERLASTING

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever. 

Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it. 

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975

ISBN: 0312369816

Page Count: 164

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975

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