A heartwarming adventure that explores courage, self-belief, and dreams.
A 13-year-old Black girl’s locker find leads her into an unlikely intergenerational friendship that widens her horizons.
Candace Wells is beginning eighth grade with a friendship crisis. Her Filipino American best friend, Deen, has been spending more time with Candace’s “next best friend,” Becca, who’s Black and biracial, leaving Candace feeling like the odd one out. When Candace opens her new locker, a bird shoots out. Deen and Becca walk away arm in arm, leaving her to clean up. As she disinfects her locker, Candace discovers a purple composition notebook with handwritten notes. The friendship advice feels especially relevant: “These People Are Not Your Friends.” The next chapter transports readers to 1988, where Black eighth grader Tracey Auburn is arguing with her best friend, olive-skinned Dia Andres, when a bird flies into her school locker. Her purple notebook and pen go missing from her locker—only to reappear with a drawing of the bird and the signature “Candace.” Candace tracks down Tracey, who’s a professor at a local college, and the two eventually locate Loretta Spencer, the Black woman who had the locker back in 1948 and who studied physics. The trio, connected by the mysterious locker, bird, and notebook, examine the strange phenomena. Smith offers nuanced portrayals of the well-rounded characters and their relationships, combined with enjoyable fantasy elements. Each lead character’s storyline offers accessible connection points, keeping readers engaged.
A heartwarming adventure that explores courage, self-belief, and dreams. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781524737931
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
© 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.
