Skip to main content

Review: Right Back at You

By
By Carolyn Mackler
New York: Scholastic Press, 2025. Fiction. 226 pages.

At the suggestion of his therapist, Mason wrote a letter to Albert Einstein about his life and promptly hid it in his closet. The next day when he goes to retrieve and toss the letter, he finds a different one in its place. This letter was written by Talia, a girl who was twelve almost 40 years ago and she's confused about how someone from the future put a letter in her closet and about what "googling" means. Both twelve-year-olds are dealing with bullying at their school and parents who don't know how to help them. By conversing, they are able to find confidence and strength to stand up to their bullies and to open up to their parents.

This epistolary novel is a quick and engaging read. It alternates between letters from Mason and Talia, which feel very journal-like as they slowly open up to each other. I feel like this book does a good job balancing the idea that kids should tell their parents when they're being picked on at school, but how sometimes they'll also need to stand up for themselves. Talia, specifically, is bullied because she's Jewish, and readers will learn along with her as she discovers more about antisemitism and the holocaust.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

By
If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.
Post a Comment
Read more

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

By loo
Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.
Post a Comment
Read more

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