Skip to main content

Review: Manatee Summer

Image
By
By Evan Griffith
New York: Quill Tree Books, 2022. Fiction.

It's the summer before middle school, and 11-year-old Peter plans to spend his entire summer completing the "Discovery Journal" he keeps with his best friend Tommy. The journal is filled with drawings and copious notes about the wildlife they discover in their Central Florida neighborhood. When Discovery No. 95, a manatee the boys name Zoe, turns up critically injured, Peter is galvanized to advocate for animal rights and his summer of activism begins. Meanwhile, he is faced with the upsetting news that Tommy, his best and only friend, is moving to Michigan. If that weren't enough, Peter also must balance his time helping manatees with his role as caretaker for his grandfather with Alzheimer's, keeping an eye on him while his single mother works.

This is a sun-soaked novel perfect for readers who love animals and their planet. Peter's role in Zoe's rescue feels believable, even for his young age, and will inspire many like minded kids to look for ways to take action in their own lives. This story is reminiscent of one of my all-time favorite novels for kids -- Carl Hiassen's Hoot, but is updated for a modern age. The friendship between Peter and Tommy is an especially sweet part of this book, both boys are thoughtful and sensitive and their friendship is all the better because of it. Though a little heart wrenching at parts, this is a book well-sited for readers who enjoy ocean settings and friendship.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Fowl Play

By
  Fowl Play By Kristin O'Donnell Tubb New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2024. Fiction 277 pages. Still reeling from her beloved uncle's death, Chloe Alvarez is comforted and confused when at his last will and testament reading, Uncle Will gifts her his African Grey parrot, Charlie. Charlie has a robust vocabulary and loves to make Alexa requests for her favorite songs, but when she starts saying things like, "homicide," and "cyanide," Chloe becomes convinced that Uncle Will may have met his demise by murder instead of a genetic disease, as was previously thought. Ultimately, bringing in her brother, Grammy, and Uncle Frank (and of course Charlie,) Chloe's ragtag and adoring family support her search for answers ---going on stakeouts, engaging in fast pursuits, and searching for clues. But as the suspects stack up and the mystery grows, Chole will learn that the process of death and grieving is complicated, and in the end her Uncle Will's words that, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry

By DeeDee
National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry Edited by J. Patrick Lewis National Geographic, 2012, 183 p. Poetry In this beautiful poetry collection, the National Children's Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis, has teamed up with the amazing photographers at National Geographic. The result is 200 poems about animals, all illustrated with stunning nature photography.  The poems are well chosen and include rhyming, free verse, and shape poetry. Some of the poems are funny, many are contemplative and all are nicely typeset on top of the full color photographs. One of my favorites is a shape poem about flamingos, with a photograph of a flock of flamingos which seem to be standing the the shape of a flamingo (how did they do that?).  Lewis ends the collection with a brief but interesting section about writing animal poetry.  This selection is sure to turn any animal lover into a poetry lover.
Post a Comment
Read more