A heartwarming coming-of-age tale about swimming, sisterhood, and principles.
With three high achievers for sisters, Chinese American sixth grader Esme Sun is sure she’ll never meet her mother’s expectations.
Esme is looking forward to spending summer vacation at the local pool with her swim team. But this year, her plans for a carefree summer run into problems—her teammate Tegan (who presents white) seems more interested in boys and fashion than swimming, and she chides Esme for being “too intense.” A misunderstanding leads to a prickly relationship between Esme and new girl Kaya, who’s Black, and the swim meets lead to unpleasant encounters with more competitive swimmers. Esme finds herself torn between trying to stay close to Tegan, despite her mean jabs, and making new friends at the pool. As she begins to excel at the meets and finally wins her mother’s approval, Esme also has to decide if it’s better to put herself first and focus on winning—as her mom advises—or uphold the true sporting spirit and teamwork that the swim meets represent. Told from Esme’s first-person perspective, this well-crafted tale deftly examines the pressures of success and the courage necessary to find one’s own path. The characters are well etched and relatable, and the story gracefully underscores the importance of talking through problems with empathy and tolerance. Shang also addresses racism and colorism; Esme’s stand and her decisions in the face of her longed-for approval from her mother will resonate with readers.
A heartwarming coming-of-age tale about swimming, sisterhood, and principles. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9781546115380
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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