A fast-paced plot, quirky characters, and timely themes address friendship and identity in the digital age.
Lonely, awkward Zed Moonstein is growing up in MonoTown, formerly known as Orange Hills and now the tech-obsessed headquarters of the company MonoLyth.
White-presenting Jewish sixth grader Zed’s world revolves around his best (and only) friend, Rishti Ray, who reads South Asian. So when Rishti starts spending time with new friend Caz Rojas, Zed feels abandoned. Desperate for connection, Zed discovers a secret app on his mom’s work server: MonoFriend. Through it, he meets “Matt,” an artificial intelligence presence who seems to understand him better than any real person. But as their friendship deepens, Zed begins to question what it really means to have a friend—and whether Matt is everything he claims to be. The tech-enhanced town, with homes, stores, and schools outfitted with every possible version of AI, plays a driving role in the plot and provides the context for much of the pulse-pounding action. Rubin skillfully balances humor, suspense, and emotional insights into the angst and isolation of adolescence, especially in a world where technology is always a tap away. And although the cautionary message regarding the perils of technology can get a bit heavy-handed, the book poses important questions about the role of AI in our lives, the loss of genuine connection and privacy, and how greed and constant consumption can drive innovation in a dangerous direction.
A fast-paced plot, quirky characters, and timely themes address friendship and identity in the digital age. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9780063396654
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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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