by Martha Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2000
Born from the short story `The Kindness of Strangers` in her collection Traveling on into the Light and Other Stories (1994) Brooks builds a delicately tuned novel in three parts that pays homage to Capote in its treatment of characters, but stands strongly on its own. Good-looking Laker is an introspective teenager who's grown up with his mostly-single mom Audrey. Her new marriage and pregnancy drives a wedge into their close relationship, and Laker starts to stay away from home, drinking, punishing himself and his mom, until in a rage he physically attacks his stepfather, and then catches a bus out of town. Act two: enter Henry, an octogenarian still grieving for his wife, who takes in Laker mostly to spite his own daughter. Laker does some work for Henry in exchange for room and board, but by the time the two can both admit they're using each other, they've become attached. In the final section, Henry and Laker take a trip together that returns each to his own past, and is intended to set them each on his own way. Laker's voice is moody, melancholy, and intelligent. He reads plays voraciously—especially, of course, A Streetcar Named Desire, and his inner landscape is portrayed metaphorically in the outer one that Brooks details. She seems to employ an entirely different vocabulary than the rest of us, as her completely ordinary turns of phrase swell with the extraordinary. She has a keen eye for people, as Capote did, and every minor character comes alive instantly and fully. Laker's story is at once pedestrian and miraculous. Brooks deals with universal adolescent themes of home, self, and romance with a fresh hand, creating a memorable story that begs repeating. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7894-2588-2
Page Count: 215
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
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by Martha Brooks ; illustrated by Leticia Ruifernández
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by John Boyne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2006
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Rae Carson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2011
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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