An entertaining thriller with a feel-good ending that, despite its over-the-top plot, showcases the emotionally resonant...
After her niece is kidnapped from a hotel room, 12-year-old Jess must find the baby and get her back.
Jess, the youngest in her fractured family, is the responsible one, the one everyone depends on. So when her feckless adult brother bullies her into babysitting so he can go to sister Whee’s wedding rehearsal dinner (which means that Jess can’t), she dutifully acquiesces. Feeling resentful and uncharacteristically rebellious, Jess leaves Baby Ruby on the bed while she goes into the bathroom to try on Whee’s wedding dress and play with her makeup. When Jess comes out, the baby is gone. Convinced that the kidnapper is a man she saw hanging around the hallway, Jess goes to investigate, telling only her older sister Teddy what she’s up to. The plot, which youngsters should find suspenseful, is wildly preposterous, with each turn more ludicrous than the one before. But Shreve’s main interest is in the family dynamic, particularly Jess’ close connection to her troubled but devoted sister Teddy. Their relationship, supported by the solidly centered, paternal detective (a canny foil for the girls’ more solipsistic parents), is the strongest part of the novel and rings true.
An entertaining thriller with a feel-good ending that, despite its over-the-top plot, showcases the emotionally resonant ties that bind sisters and families. (Thriller. 8-12)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-41783-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
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
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