War is a complicated thing for 11-year-old Hazel Anderson. Everyone knew how Mr. Erickson’s nephew Sam had a rough time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and now her friend Jed, who’s been like a big brother to her, is missing in action, perhaps imprisoned or dead. Her new friend Sogoji has been sent to a Japanese internment camp, and her new teacher, the community’s own war hero, has turned out to be a deserter on the lam. Hazel comes to realize so many things are beyond her control, but perhaps there’s room in the world for someone willing to act kindly, to be a friend who can hope for Sogoji’s return to a more welcoming community. Hazel stands up for her friend when many in her community do not, willing to make her name Mud in order to do what’s right. This powerful work deftly explores how war affects a community, when the identity of friend, enemy and hero is sometimes difficult to discern. Fans of Cheaney’s Elizabethan thrillers The Playmaker (2000) and The True Prince (2004) will find this equally compelling. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: July 12, 2005
ISBN: 0-375-81432-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A young man who unwittingly helps a punk steal an elderly couple’s television in the first story sets the somewhat uneasy tone for this collection. While glimpses of Soto’s characteristic humor and charm appear in later stories, many of these tales focus on less-than-comfortable events and experiences. There’s a girl whose tattooed and pierced babysitter dyes her younger brother’s hair orange and green, a fact sure to enrage their mom when she eventually finds out; a child who is achingly aware of the enmity of anti-war protesters and simultaneously proud of her immigrant parents’ efforts to improve their lives; and a sad young boy whose painfully polite parents have frozen him out of the family without apparently meaning to do so. Each situation is distinct, clearly drawn and immediate. Soto presents his characters with sometimes insurmountable challenges, but he limns their lives with such vivid descriptions and insights that readers will be left wondering how things work out—and wishing for the best. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-206181-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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