Accessible and engaging, this novel shines as an exceptional tale of self-acceptance and understanding.
A seventh grader’s Chinese and Muslim identities take center stage as she navigates friendship tensions and self-acceptance.
Sophie Hu grapples with the meaning of embracing her faith when her family members, who are Hui, follow only minimal Islamic practices: “Other than not eating pork, what does it mean that I’m Muslim?” She struggles when her bisexual best friend, Katie, forms new friendships in the school’s LGBTQ+ club. Their bond is further tested during the Rainbow Fair, a major middle school cultural event. Katie’s organizing an LGBTQ+ booth, and a teacher unexpectedly tasks Sophie with creating a Muslim one: “The only thing worse than being the school’s only Muslim is being the school’s inauthentic Muslim.” The arrival of Turkish American transfer student Anna Demir, a fellow Muslim, helps Sophie see that there isn’t just one way to embody one’s faith, sparking a journey of self-discovery. Ultimately, Sophie embraces her layered heritage, opens conversations about her family’s history (her parents were born in Taiwan), and helps others celebrate their authentic selves. Ma deftly examines the intersectionality of identity with nuance and authenticity. Sophie’s growth—recognizing that her family’s approach to Islam doesn’t invalidate their faith—adds depth to the narrative. Meanwhile, her evolving friendship with Katie reflects the natural growing pains of middle school relationships. Ma offers a rich, relatable, and inclusive story that’s perfect for young readers grappling with their own questions of belonging.
Accessible and engaging, this novel shines as an exceptional tale of self-acceptance and understanding. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780063339521
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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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