This book will catch the eye of many a child because of the shiny, metallic gold fish scales on the cover. They might also enjoy looking through the book because Stanley, shiny and sparkly, is on every page. Unfortunately, that's about all Bright Stanley has to offer. The story is weak and, at times, doesn't even make sense. For example, it starts out with Stanley waking up late and inadvertently being left behind by his "school" as they all swim off to "cooler waters for the summer". Why didn't they just wake him up with everyone else? And doesn't he know the way? In the end, when they do meet up, his friends say "We've been looking all over for you!" Well, guys, he was home in bed. The writing appears to be in rough draft form, that stage before a good editor has taken a look at it. The dialogue between Stanley and a lobster he encounters is clumsy. There's no flow to the text. It would not make a good read-aloud, so save your breath. But, again, the visual qualities of Bright Stanley, the shiny scales, and the big toothed shark in the middle of the book, might be enough to capture the attention of young children.
Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024. Fiction. 324 pages. Kareem loves football and as he gets ready to start seventh grade he dreams of someday becoming the first Syrian American NFL player. Seventh grade is not off to a great start for Kareem, after football tryouts don't go as he had planned, his best friend moves away, and his mom returns to Syria to help bring his sick grandfather to the US for treatment. So when Austin, the quarterback and coach's son, offers to talk to his dad and get Kareem on the football team in the spring, if he will cheat and do his homework for him, Kareem agrees. Kareem really wants to fit in at school and he is desperate to find a friend, but deep down he knows that doing Austin's homework isn't the right thing to do. And to make things harder, Kareem's mom asks him to be a friend to Fadi, a Syrian Christian refugee. He knows he should stand up for Fadi and help him adjust to the new school,...
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