For any girl going through life, body, and school changes, especially those interested in social activism.
A young social activist must prove her reliability while her mother is away.
Mya Parsons, 12-year-old future United Nations staffer, wants to save the world. Unfortunately, it’s hard to save the world when her mother is all the way in Myanmar, taking care of her sick grandmother, and Mya is one of the only kids in seventh grade without a cellphone. Using a multipronged strategy, Mya sets out to prove she is responsible and deserving of a phone. As the weeks go on, Mya’s home life starts to fall apart. Plus, with her best friend distracted by cellphones and crushes, her school life isn’t going well either. Mya must take charge if she’ll ever save the world, let alone survive the next few weeks. Writing from Mya’s first-person point of view, Kyi creates accessible characters and a funny story. Emails, flyers, and recipes that Mya has created add pleasant breaks to the text. With an Asian mother who’s Buddhist and a white father who’s Christian, biracial Mya forthrightly discusses religion. Befitting her protagonist, Kyi includes real social justice issues in addition to preteen girl life, shedding light on important topics such as the persecution of the Rohingya and the use of cobalt in cellphones.
For any girl going through life, body, and school changes, especially those interested in social activism. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-6525-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Puffin/Penguin Random House Canada
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
SEEN & HEARD
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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