Heartwarming and empowering.
A young scientist in the Seattle area designs an experiment to prove she’s just as mature as her friends.
Kylie Stanton, who’s Black, has always been different from her best friends as a budding scientist, a karate brown belt—and an unintentional crybaby. Black and Filipino Naomi, Indian American Nikila, and white Mara never used to mind Kylie’s sensitive nature, but everything’s changing as they prepare for middle school. Kylie worries they’ll decide she’s “too babyish to hang out with.” Desperate to keep her friends, Kylie designs an experiment for the summer before seventh grade to prove she’s mature by not crying and doing everything her friends do. It seems like a foolproof plan, until she finds herself agreeing to things she doesn’t want to do and giving up things she does. She’s further confused by Naomi, who’s been lying, keeping secrets, and being uncharacteristically mean and moody. Is that what it means to be mature? Is that really who she wants to be? Kylie is an endearing, relatable protagonist readers will root for. She wrestles with moral conundrums and situations that cause confusing emotions in ways that are never didactic; this balance keeps readers interested while encouraging them to think independently. Kylie’s incremental growth is realistic and well developed, leading to a satisfying conclusion. The strong representation of a loving Black family and the accessible demonstration of the scientific method in action are added bonuses.
Heartwarming and empowering. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780063039476
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
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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