Historical facts are woven into the story with such finesse readers will be eager to learn more.
Joseph McCoy is a budding spy and the “best shoeshine in Elsinore, California.”
In 1935, Joseph shines shoes to earn money. During a shoeshine, the 11-year-old African American boy learns that a segregated company of the Civilian Conservation Corps will be setting up camp outside of town near his home, where he and older sister Maya, who has lost the use of her legs to polio, keep pigeons. When he’s one dime short for birdseed, he asks town oddball Mr. Healey, a poor white man, if he can shine his shoes to earn the money. An unlikely rapport develops between the two. Joseph finds an additional way to earn money when he meets George, a black CCC member who pays him to find some pigeons. When a white woman who protested the arrival of the corps is accidentally knocked down by George, a campaign ensues to have the CCC removed from the town, and racial tensions heighten. The story unfolds smoothly, with lots of action; faux newspaper articles and other “archival” material are interspersed between chapters. The author’s skillful blend of fact and fiction is backed up by fascinating backmatter that includes black-and-white photographs and easy-to-decipher infographics. Although racial hostility is on display in abundance, the text does not include racial slurs.
Historical facts are woven into the story with such finesse readers will be eager to learn more. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63163-372-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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
Poignant and heartwarming.
Zephyrina the cat, the “Robin Hood of felines,” rescues discarded toys so they can have new lives.
Zephyrina brings toys back to the apartment she shares with Elizaveta and her daughter, Dasha, refugees from war-torn Ukraine. Dasha reconditions Zephyrina’s rescues and sets them outside for three days, just in case they have owners who want to reclaim them. Afterward, they join the other toys in the parlor—the Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured. Dasha and Elizaveta don’t know that the toys are sentient. At midnight they abandon their rigid daytime postures to cavort and play, overseen by their leader, Pocket, a tiny mascot bear made to comfort soldiers during World War I. One night, Zephyrina brings back a dirty old bear, and Pocket is astounded. The new arrival, Berwon, might come from a lost shipment of the first-ever stuffed bears, sent from Germany to the U.S. in 1903—and if so, he’s worth a fortune. In the ensuing antics, the unpleasant villain Picky Vicky covets Berwon, and a kind museum curator does, too, but for different reasons. Applegate’s writing is exquisitely nuanced; she couches profound themes in accessible language that depicts relatable situations. Gentle, generous Elizaveta and Dasha poignantly underscore the human impact of wars. Santoso’s enchanting, delicate, black-and-white illustrations bring the timeless feeling of a classic to this hopeful, humanizing story of the distressed looking out for each other.
Poignant and heartwarming. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781250904362
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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