Rife with references to anime and fan culture, a mystery sure to entice readers.
An anime fan must solve a mystery and save the day when things go wrong at a convention.
Bree Wong and her best friend, Alix, are on their way to the Anime Expo dressed as the characters from Red Squirrel, Black Heart. Gregarious Alix is there to show off their meticulously crafted costume at the cosplay contest, while shy Bree just wants to meet Midori, who voices Red Squirrel. When Midori’s signing event is canceled, Bree decides to play detective. She quickly discovers that a rare sketch documenting Red Squirrel’s original character design—which Midori revealed at a panel—was just stolen. To recover the sketch and score a chance to meet Midori, Bree must overcome her shyness, venture into all corners of the Anime Expo, and dodge security and aggressive fans alike. The mystery’s resolution is somewhat anticlimactic. Still, the simple vocabulary and quick pacing make the story a good fit for struggling readers, and the anime references and authentic representation of convention dynamics—including a scene where an older convention goer ogles Bree and another girl—will draw in fans of the format. The last name Wong suggests that Bree is of Chinese descent, though physical descriptions are minimal. Alix uses they/them pronouns and identifies as a girl.
Rife with references to anime and fan culture, a mystery sure to entice readers. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781459837430
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read.
Will a bully always be a bully?
That’s the question eighth-grade football captain Chase Ambrose has to answer for himself after a fall from his roof leaves him with no memory of who and what he was. When he returns to Hiawassee Middle School, everything and everyone is new. The football players can hardly wait for him to come back to lead the team. Two, Bear Bratsky and Aaron Hakimian, seem to be special friends, but he’s not sure what they share. Other classmates seem fearful; he doesn’t know why. Temporarily barred from football because of his concussion, he finds a new home in the video club and, over time, develops a new reputation. He shoots videos with former bullying target Brendan Espinoza and even with Shoshanna Weber, who’d hated him passionately for persecuting her twin brother, Joel. Chase voluntarily continues visiting the nursing home where he’d been ordered to do community service before his fall, making a special friend of a decorated Korean War veteran. As his memories slowly return and he begins to piece together his former life, he’s appalled. His crimes were worse than bullying. Will he become that kind of person again? Set in the present day and told in the alternating voices of Chase and several classmates, this finding-your-middle-school-identity story explores provocative territory. Aside from naming conventions, the book subscribes to the white default.
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-05377-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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