Hero-worship comes face to face with human reality in this coming-of-age tale set in Hawaii. Thirteen-year-old Mikey’s father ran out on him before he was even born, so when his stepfather Bill came along five years ago, he was more than ready for a father. There is nothing he wants more than to grow up to be just like Bill, so when Bill is forced to let the deckhand on his charter fishing boat go, Mikey jumps at the opportunity to help out. A day on the water with two loutish tourists and a beautiful 16-year-old girl changes everything. Salisbury (Jungle Dogs, 1998, etc.) effectively takes the reader to the scene, presenting a tiny, temporary microculture in which the power relationships among the characters are laid out starkly against the sparkling blue tropical sea. Bad fishing luck, Mikey’s critical mistake in fouling the line when a marlin is hooked, and a series of humiliations at the hands of the boat’s clients culminate in Bill’s betrayal of the sport fishing code—and the revelation of his feet of clay to Mikey. The language couldn’t be more evocative: “The ocean rushed into his ears, his nose, the warm watery pressure of a billion miles of sea pressing in on every inch of his body.” The rhythm of the text parallels the fishing trip—reflective and almost somnolent in between bites, punctuated by heart-stopping action when a fish is on the line. The tightly-focused narration allows Mikey’s emotions full play but hinders the full development of the secondary characters—in particular Alison, the daughter of one of the louts, who acts mostly as a sounding board for Mikey but whose own emotions and motivations remain somewhat enigmatic. This is a small quibble; as an exploration of one boy’s conflicted feelings about fatherhood and his own impending manhood, this novel delivers beautifully. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-72918-9
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
