The author bases this latest on a premise so unlikely it is almost laughable, yet the characters involved are worth caring about. When Feena was four, her beloved baby brother Christopher died of SIDS. Now ten years later, Feena’s father is gone and her mother has moved the two of them to Florida for a fresh start. Things are pretty bleak: a hot, cramped house wedged between the highway and a rundown kiddie amusement park. There, Feena sees a mother hitting and insulting her toddler on several occasions. While the abuse is not horrific by current standards, the coldness and cruelty of this mother are clear. Feena is struck not only by the awful treatment of the toddler, but also by his name: Christopher, the same as her dead brother. The last straw comes when Feena witnesses the mother leaving Christopher in the parking lot and driving away. She rescues (kidnaps?) Christy and decides to hide him. Very soon it becomes clear that Feena is in over her head. She has no money, no place to hide him, and she’s supposed to be in school. Added to the dubious nature of the plot, the most popular girl in school finds out about him and is immediately drawn to saving him, too. The girls succeed for a few weeks but the situation becomes too much for them, and Feena returns the little boy to his mother in spite of what they know. Feena plans to keep in touch with the mother in an effort to prevent future abuse, but when she returns for her first visit, Christy and his family are gone. The girls struggle with many issues around Christy’s kidnapping and disappearance. They wonder if they are justified in breaking the law to save a child, and why the law hasn’t protected him before. They wonder what kind of life he will have and where his mother has taken him. Both girls are complex characters, well drawn and sympathetic. What this lacks in realism, it makes up for in character development and “issue raising” and would be great for classroom discussion in a junior-high language arts class. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1371-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember.
Kai’s life is upended when his coastal village is devastated in Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami in this verse novel from an author who experienced them firsthand.
With his single mother, her parents, and his friend Ryu among the thousands missing or dead, biracial Kai, 17, is dazed and disoriented. His friend Shin’s supportive, but his intact family reminds Kai, whose American dad has been out of touch for years, of his loss. Kai’s isolation is amplified by his uncertain cultural status. Playing soccer and his growing friendship with shy Keiko barely lessen his despair. Then he’s invited to join a group of Japanese teens traveling to New York to meet others who as teenagers lost parents in the 9/11 attacks a decade earlier. Though at first reluctant, Kai agrees to go and, in the process, begins to imagine a future. Like graphic novels, today’s spare novels in verse (the subgenre concerning disasters especially) are significantly shaped by what’s left out. Lacking art’s visceral power to grab attention, verse novels may—as here—feel sparsely plotted with underdeveloped characters portrayed from a distance in elegiac monotone. Kai’s a generic figure, a coat hanger for the disaster’s main event, his victories mostly unearned; in striking contrast, his rural Japanese community and how they endure catastrophe and overwhelming losses—what they do and don’t do for one another, comforts they miss, kindnesses they value—spring to life.
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember. (author preface, afterword) (Verse fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53474-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
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