A strongly characterized examination of healing familial reconnection.
A boy who’s ready to spend the summer after seventh grade watching soccer and cooking with his nonna embarks on a wilderness adventure.
Ever since Nonno’s death two years ago during a fishing trip with Joey and his older cousin, Leo, Joey has struggled to enjoy the outdoors like he used to. But now Leo is coming to California for a visit, and he wants Joey to climb Mount Whitney with him on what would have been Nonno’s 75th birthday. Popular, beloved Leo is seemingly good at everything from attracting girls to feats of athleticism. He also, to Joey’s surprise, has been diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, and he wants to conquer this bucket list item before the disease progresses. The pair face grueling training, their shared grief, and Leo’s overdoing it when he needs to be mindful of his health. All the while, the cousins must lean on each other. Joey is a strong first-person narrator. He’s hobbled by the guilt surrounding the circumstances of Nonno’s death and insecurity over being out of shape, but he blossoms through hiking and rediscovers his natural, likable warmth via new friendships. Leo is a well-rounded character, not simply a prop for Joey’s story, but while the close, fraught bond between the cousins is realistic, Leo’s illness is somewhat vaguely portrayed, primarily through Joey’s eyes. The Italian American family’s culture is woven into their lives.
A strongly characterized examination of healing familial reconnection. (author’s note, discussion guide, further resources) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781631639180
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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