This sequel is lacking in “flour power.” (Fiction. 8-12)
The four members of Flowerpot Cabin reunite for another summer of friendship, romance, mystery, and cookies (The Secret Cookie Club, 2015).
Olivia, Grace, Emma, and Lucy are determined to win Top Cabin as well as rank highest in Chore Score, but when their counselor, Hannah, receives a breakup letter from her boyfriend, the girls rally to support her. They reason that what Hannah needs is a new boyfriend. And what could be better at sparking a summer romance than secret cookies? For their plan to succeed, however, they are going to need everyone’s help. Unfortunately, sometimes it is hard to talk to boys, particularly if one of those boys is the crush-worthy Vivek. The story excels in its direct approach to demographics: Olivia is African-American, the daughter of a successful barbecue-sauce magnate; Grace is biracial, white and ethnic Chinese; Emma is a white, Jewish girl from Philadelphia; Lucy is white and not so well-to-do; Vivek is second-generation Indian-American. While the characters’ interactions are age-appropriate, conflicts dissipate too quickly, robbing the scenes of energy. Rotating narrators as well as letters to and from home offer multiple insights to the tale, but rather than enriching the narrative, they feel like filler for a too-thin plot.
This sequel is lacking in “flour power.” (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 17, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1046-5
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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