3 Starred Reviews for All the Greys on Greene Street
05/01/2019

All the Greys on Greene Street (Viking), Laura Tucker's acclaimed debut novel illustrated by Kelly Murphy, has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews and Booklist!

Additionally, All the Greys on Greene Street is a Junior Library Guild selection and a Publishers Weekly 2019 Middle Grade Spotlight:

“It simply but powerfully describes what it feels like to see the everyday—a window, a fire escape, a cat—through the eyes of an artist. Kelly Murphy’s illustrations build on Laura Tucker’s writing and add to the feeling that, as readers, we are peeking over the main character Olympia’s shoulder into her sketchbook and seeing the world of 1981 SoHo, full of artists’ lofts, galleries, and graffiti.”
—Publishers Weekly Editor Kendra Levin

"Give Ghosts a Chance"—The New York Times Sunday Book Review of A Properly Unhaunted Place
10/06/2017

Kelly Murphy's latest chapter book, A Properly Unhaunted Place, written by National Book Award-winning author William Alexander was reviewed in The New York Times's Sunday Book Review.

"'A Properly Unhaunted Place' begins evocatively, in a setting that is strange and full of questions. This fifth book from William Alexander, who won a National Book Award for "Goblin Secrets," creates an unsettling tone of mystery[…]"

"Helped by Kelly Murphy’s provocative illustrations, peppered throughout the book, Alexander has created a cautionary tale and a profound and beautiful work. (My only complaint is that there are not enough illustrations to make them absolutely necessary – I’d have liked more of them, but this is a rather small criticism). This novel explores the very idea of books, the purpose of libraries and the rather large theme of why the present must embrace a relationship with the past. It reminds us that if we are not brave enough to live alongside the haunting past, then we risk becoming nothing more than ghosts, haunting the earth but never inhabiting it."

—Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Starred Review from Kirkus Reviews for A Properly Unhaunted Place
05/24/2017

Kelly Murphy's chapter book, A Properly Unhaunted Place, written by National Book Award-winning author William Alexander and published by Simon and Schuster, has received a starred review from Kirkus.

"In a world where hauntings are endemic, Rosa Diaz finds herself in a town suspiciously devoid of ghostly activity in Alexander's (Nomad, 2016, etc.) latest.

Latina protagonist Rosa is not your usual new-to-town middle school student. Rosa is an apprentice appeasement specialist. Her skills in placating restless souls are going to waste in the small town of Ingot, a place where people go to escape their hauntings, not to appease them. The placid lack of supernatural phenomena ends when an angry spirit gate-crashes opening day of the town Renaissance festival embodied in the carcass of a mountain lion. With the help of a new acquaintance, 11-year-old mixed-race (black/white) Jasper, Rosa sets out to solve the mysteries of where the phantom came from and why no others exist in this quaint town. Alexander does an excellent job of building a contemporary world in which the paranormal is nevertheless ubiquitous and expected. This haunted world begs for further exploration. Though it's a perfectly enjoyable tale on a purely superficial level, readers who choose to dig deeper will find an engrossing exploration of complicated grief and what damage may be wrought when negative emotions are barricaded away rather than addressed.

A fun and fast-paced supernatural mystery with secret depths for those who dare explore them."

Starred Review from Publishers Weekly for A Celebration of Beatrix Potter
10/03/2016

A Celebration of Beatrix Potter, published by the beloved author's historic editor Frederick Warne & Co., has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. For this project, Penguin Random House commissioned text and illustrations from more than 30 contemporary children's book illustrators, providing the artists' own spins on beloved Potter tales. Kelly Murphy created an illustration representing Peter Rabbit's nemesis Mr. McGregor, and contributed a short essay about her appreciation for Potter's work.

"Understandably, remorseless gardener Mr. McGregor looms large in several images. Brendan Wenzel calls him "a near perfect bogeyman" and, in a spooky watercolor, depicts him staring through milky glasses; Kelly Murphy pictures him in the same inscrutable spectacles, brandishing a sharp-toothed rake."

—Publishers Weekly

2 Starred Reviews for The Door by the Staircase from School Library Journal and Kirkus
10/03/2016

Kelly Murphy's new book for Disney-Hyperion, The Door By The Staircase, written by Katherine Marsh, received a starred review, from School Library Journal and a starred review from Kirkus:

"It's a delightful mash-up of stories and traditions; imagine Little Orphan Annie crossed with Russian folklore, plunked down in the spiritualist community of Lily Dale, NY, with a dash of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away on top.

Perhaps not a story for reluctant or struggling readers-it's relatively demanding in terms of length and vocabulary-but for those willing to tackle a rich and layered text, there's much here to enjoy."

—Amy Holland, Irondequoit Public Library, NY