Sweet but superficial.
Some friendships are easy, and some are more complex.
Sixth graders Gabe and Oliver have been best friends since pre-K, when sporty Oliver inspired bookish Gabe to try the teeter-totter—and encouraged him to keep trying it until he got the hang of things. This became the basis of their philosophy of complementary friendship. It’s a solid relationship but one that Gabe sometimes worries about as their interests diverge. However, they’re still a natural choice to work together when their teacher gives the class a storytelling assignment that can take any format they wish. The duo embarks on creating a comic that chronicles the adventures of Gabiver, a fictional detective and crime fighter inspired by Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man who is a composite of the two boys. Their assignment—and their friendship—is changed with the addition of new student Reuben, a boy who doesn’t talk, and seventh grader Rae, a girl who refuses to atone to a teacher for voicing her opinion and must spend time with the younger class until she crafts an apology. The story does a lot of things well, including its subtle examination of masculinity and friendship, although it suffers slightly under some far-fetched plot points, excessively tidy resolutions, and easy summations of trauma. Readers looking for a breezy read will most likely be pleased, but those hoping to sink their teeth into something meatier may find it too saccharine. All main characters read White.
Sweet but superficial. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-320685-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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
During a school year in which a gifted teacher who emphasizes personal responsibility among his fifth graders ends up in a coma from a thrown snowball, his students come to terms with their own issues and learn to be forgiving. Told in short chapters organized month-by-month in the voices of seven students, often describing the same incident from different viewpoints, this weaves together a variety of not-uncommon classroom characters and situations: the new kid, the trickster, the social bully, the super-bright and the disaffected; family clashes, divorce and death; an unwed mother whose long-ago actions haven't been forgotten in the small-town setting; class and experiential differences. Mr. Terupt engineers regular visits to the school’s special-needs classroom, changing some lives on both sides. A "Dollar Word" activity so appeals to Luke that he sprinkles them throughout his narrative all year. Danielle includes her regular prayers, and Anna never stops her hopeful matchmaking. No one is perfect in this feel-good story, but everyone benefits, including sentimentally inclined readers. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73882-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
