The quick pace and creative storyline will attract those in the mood for an undemanding, light read.
What could be worse than cleaning other people’s toilets on the weekends? Cleaning the toilets of the two most popular girls in eighth grade, that’s what.
Rachel Lee needs to raise $300 fast, having stolen it from her college fund to buy a ticket to Florida to convince her father to return to the family. In order to pay her fund back before her mother finds out, she enlists as a helper in her mother’s new cleaning business. As she gains access to the bedrooms of some key people in her middle school, Rachel makes some decisions that come back to haunt her, escalating the very problems she is trying to solve. After causing untrue rumors to start and accepting money to spy on someone, Rachel finally learns that honest conversations with parents and true friends seem to be the best tonic. And yes, the mean girls are really mean—but Rachel discovers reasons for that as well. Although most of the issues that confront Rachel seem two-dimensional, Staniszewski neatly captures the pain of a shy young girl with newly separated parents. Written in Rachel’s voice, the plot is predictable and the language simple.
The quick pace and creative storyline will attract those in the mood for an undemanding, light read. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8636-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development.
A portal fantasy survivor story from an established devotional writer.
Fourteen-year-old Eva’s maternal grandmother lives on a grand estate in England; Eva and her academic parents live in New Haven, Connecticut. When she and Mum finally visit Carrick Hall, Eva is alternately resentful at what she’s missed and overjoyed to connect with sometimes aloof Grandmother. Alongside questions of Eva’s family history, the summer is permeated by a greater mystery surrounding the work of fictional children’s fantasy writer A.H.W. Clifton, who wrote a Narnialike series that Eva adores. As it happens, Grandmother was one of several children who entered and ruled Ternival, the world of Clifton’s books; the others perished in 1952, and Grandmother hasn’t recovered. The Narnia influences are strong—Eva’s grandmother is the Susan figure who’s repudiated both magic and God—and the ensuing trauma has created rifts that echo through her relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. An early narrative implication that Eva will visit Ternival to set things right barely materializes in this series opener; meanwhile, the religious parable overwhelms the magic elements as the story winds on. The serviceable plot is weakened by shallow characterization. Little backstory appears other than that which immediately concerns the plot, and Eva tends to respond emotionally as the story requires—resentful when her seething silence is required, immediately trusting toward characters readers need to trust. Major characters are cued white.
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development. (author’s note, map, author Q&A) (Religious fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593194454
Page Count: 384
Publisher: WaterBrook
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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