All readers will appreciate this book’s nuanced messaging around gender roles and trusting yourself.
A slim hi-lo tackles toxic masculinity.
Fishel “Fish” Rosner doesn’t want to play water polo. Nor does he want to collect used sports equipment for his bar mitzvah project. What Fish really wants to do is learn to knit, but his grandmother won’t teach him, just as his mother and stepfather, Darren, won’t let him wiggle out of playing team sports at the Jewish Community Center when Fish would rather do Zumba. And when Fish tells his best friend, Seth, that he is joining the school knitting club, Seth responds by telling Fish that his interests are “weird” and “girly,” embarking on a campaign of relational aggression. Fish still desperately wants to incorporate knitting into his bar mitzvah project, and both his rabbi and a math teacher become his champions, affirming that all people may participate in all activities, regardless of gender identity. Fish is assertive and brave, outspoken in his critique of rigid gender norms. Readers will rejoice as he stands up to other boys and to his stepfather, contesting Darren’s shallow exhortation that “boys don’t cry” with tearful truth. He is a formidable ally to girls and women. Though brief, this text masterfully connects the toxic masculinity to its roots in deep misogyny, making Fish a hero people of all genders can stand up and cheer for.
All readers will appreciate this book’s nuanced messaging around gender roles and trusting yourself. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4598-2659-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
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.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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