(2) YA Readers learn two things at the beginning of this novel: twelve-year-old Alex did something terrible, and he hates the word opportunity. The word has only come up in the worst moments of Alex's life, most recently when his court-mandated social worker arranges for him to volunteer over the summer at the local retirement home full of old people whom Alex thinks are "gross." At Shady Glen, Alex meets bossy kid volunteer Maya-Jade as well as 107-year-old Holocaust survivor Jozef Kravitz, who serves as the story's narrator, though he has an omniscient perspective. Jozef, who has been silent for five years, begins to share with Alex the story of Olka, the love of his life, and the hardships they endured in Nazi-occupied Poland. As Jozef opens up, so does Alex's world; he befriends other residents and Maya-Jade and learns to look beyond the pain, anger, and self-loathing that have been churning inside him ever since his mother's disappearance and his kinship foster care placement. Forman crafts a unique story, told in the voice of a wiser, older character; everything feels close and personal, from Alex's present to Jozef's past. She captures the quietly powerful moments of feeling seen and known, how friendships can make a bleak life feel fresh with possibilities, and how a person's worst moments need not shape their future.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) YA Thirteen-year-old Ruby Chu is grieving the death of Ye-Ye, her paternal grandfather, who would devise elaborate scavenger hunts around San Francisco's Chinatown for her. Ruby has also lost her best friends Mia, who moved away, and Naomi, who has become closer with her soccer teammates. Even her sister, Viv, is moving across the country for college at the end of the summer. When Ruby gets caught ditching school, her parents send her off to Nai-Nai's house for the summer. She spends the weekdays with her grandmother, visiting her friends ("a bunch of old Chinese ladies") at the senior center, making tea, and watching Chinese dramas. An otherwise boring summer is interrupted when a newcomer, Liam, also no stranger to grief, appears at the senior center with his Maa-Maa. Summer slowly rolls on, Nai-Nai begins exhibiting signs of dementia, and Ye-Ye's favorite bakery, a staple of Chinatown, threatens to close due to development. What begins as an isolating and overwhelming journey through grief turns hopeful as Ruby makes new friends, opens up to the people she loves most, and learns that she doesn't have to navigate change alone.

Reviewer: Gabi K. Huesca | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(3) YA Practical teen Audrey questions her future the summer after graduation. Her professor parents push their local liberal arts college, but Audrey considers pursuing nursing out of state. A surprising (and authentic) romance with a boy devoted to their seaside-California hometown makes her decision harder. This breezy summer story boasts a well-balanced mix of romantic, family, and personal conflicts that will appeal to Sarah Dessen fans.

Reviewer: Jessica Tackett MacDonald

(4) 4-6 This sequel to The Perfect Score picks up the next fall as the five kids who cheated on a standardized test are made to volunteer at the senior center. The co-narrators have new goals, including reuniting an estranged pair of mother-daughter teachers. Fans may be pleased to be reacquainted with this likable group, but a slow pace and superficial exploration of myriad issues probably won't win new ones.

Reviewer: Cyrisse Jaffee

(4) 4-6 Five middle schoolers are assigned to work in an assisted-living home as punishment for misdeeds. Over the course of one day, they learn to look deeper than the limiting social identities they've each established, bond with the elderly residents, and solve a mystery or two. An ambitious plot is neatly wrapped up in the end.

Reviewer: Cyrisse Jaffee

(2) 4-6 Prez (who's in foster care--just until Granddad gets "sorted out" in a nursing home) joins alien Sputnik on a mission to find ten things worth saving Earth from destruction. A madcap series of cinematic action sequences provides nine things; with the tenth, the novel finds its philosophical bearings. The characters bond as Prez searches for his beloved granddad and Sputnik strives to save the world that contains them.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2017

(3) 4-6 When eleven-year-old Steffy's usually absent father returns, it upsets the stable life she and her sister have built in their aunt's home; their mother lives in a care facility due to a traumatic brain injury. Steffy copes by cooking; her autobiographical cookbook is appended. The novel is honest about the difficulties of Steffy's childhood, and a relatively happy resolution contributes to its middle-grade appeal.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax

(2) YA Linny (in Miami) and Sebastian (in Los Angeles), who've both experienced loss, meet when reclusive, and beloved, writer Álvaro Herrera shows up at a nursing home near Linny's house. Sebastian has learned surprising news about Álvaro's connection to his family and flies to Miami to confront him. Sorosiak uses alternating voices to help flesh out the protagonists as they find their way to a more optimistic future.

Reviewer: Alma Ramos-McDermott | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2017

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Tony Ross. Walliams blends a Roald Dahl–ian anti-authoritarian mindset and wild imagination in this zany tale of a boy and his confused grandfather bucking the system. Grandpa, who thinks he's a WWII Wing Commander still living in 1940, enlists Jack's aid in stealing a Spitfire to escape the old-age home. An entertaining romp, with black-and-white illustrations aptly reminiscent of Quentin Blake's. Glos.

Reviewer: Miriam Lang Budin

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Owen Swan. When Georgie visits her grandfather in a nursing home, she hopes he'll remember her. Instead, he is lost in his own memories of long ago...until she suggests making newspaper hats, an activity he does remember. This gentle intergenerational story about familial love and memory loss, quietly illustrated with soft watercolor and pencil drawings, may be comforting for children in similar situations.

Reviewer: Cyrisse Jaffee

(4) 4-6 Narratives alternate between an online role-playing fantasy game and the real-life trauma of twelve-year-old biracial boy Nick, whose German mother has early-onset Alzheimer's. Rosen explores magical thinking and grief as Nick learns he cannot save his mother through gaming. Despite some overwrought similes ("She has eyes like huge, soft hills"), the story is moving and impressively multilayered.

Reviewer: Miriam Lang Budin

(4) 4-6 Nicola's new dog, June Bug, is wreaking havoc, her former best friend is keeping her distance, and life in general seems off-kilter. Nicola finds purpose--and joy--visiting a nursing home with June Bug and a new maybe-friend. Stock characters weigh down the story, but dog lovers will cheer on Nicola's efforts to prove that her pooch is worth keeping.

Reviewer: Pam Yosca

(2) YA Tamara, a sarcastic fifteen-year-old foster child, is forced to befriend the crotchety, cigar-smoking, nursing home resident Miss Barclay for a school project. The theme of an unappreciated child finding solace through friendship with an equally sidelined old person is one of the most persistent in children's literature; Huser (Stitches) doesn't do anything new with it, but his affecting portrait of two outsiders is involving.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2006

(1) YA Sentenced to community service at a nursing home for an uncharacteristic drunk driving episode, sixteen-year-old angst-ridden Alex befriends a difficult resident while struggling with romantic feelings for his best friend, Laurie. Brimming with hapless confusion, mulish equivocation, and deadpan humor, Sonnenblick's second novel will have readers nodding with recognition, sighing in sympathy, and gasping with laughter--often on the same page.

Reviewer: Claire E. Gross | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2006

(2) 4-6 In this fifth and final book about the kids at West Creek Middle School, a community service assignment has looks-conscious Marcia Faitak volunteering at a nursing home, a job that helps her see inner rather than outer beauty. Mills lays out her themes clearly but not patronizingly, and always realistically and with good humor.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2005

(4) 1-3 Illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz. The newest book in this popular series has Harry unhappy about the upcoming holiday season until his class visits his great-grandfather in a nursing home to share winter holiday traditions with the residents. The story is more didactic than usual, with a great deal of the text explaining different traditions. Nevertheless, Harry's many fans won't be deterred. Reading list.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(3) 4-6 After precipitating an unfortunate accident, Mitch is sentenced to one month of community service, chatting twice weekly online with a woman in a local nursing home. Their conversations introduce two likable individuals; the woman helps Mitch apologize for his actions, and he, in turn, helps her accept her present circumstances. The e-mail format and rosy resolution create a nondemanding and pleasant read.

Reviewer: Betty Carter

(4) K-3 This tale of a faithful dog searching for his master is predictable but attractive. When his elderly owner disappears one day, Yudi goes looking for him. He finds him when he hears the strains of Mr. K's favorite opera coming from a big house with "Shady Acres" on its awning. The bright illustrations are full of details from Yudi's perspective.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(4) 4-6 Cessie has just begun to know her long-absent grandfather when Popsicle, as he is called, is placed in a nursing home. The eleven-year-old helps Popsicle escape from the nursing home and sail to France to find the woman who saved him when he participated in the evacuation of Dunkirk. The two aspects of the novel--the family story and Popsicle's memories of war--never quite coalesce.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta