This story of preteen angst contains many compelling, original moments that, unfortunately, do not combine for a realistic...
Elise must unlock her past to learn what she comes from before she can decide who she wants to be.
Before starting middle school, Elise was content in her own world with Franklin. Now, playing with him has become a liability and opens her up to bullying. An orphan, Elise lives with her aunt and uncle, in whose barn are eight locked doors. On her 12th birthday, she learns her father left messages behind those doors for her. Readers know that Elise lost her mother the day she was born and her father three years later, making her convenient discovery one that stretches believability. The messages in each room read like cryptic, inspirational self-help: Know What You Come From; Believe; Treasure Your Life. Using first-person narration, LaFleur quickly sketches Elise’s descent into depression and her growing ambivalence toward Franklin, but her characterization lacks depth. Thus, when Elise betrays Franklin and shuns a new baby in the house, she appears unsympathetic. Elise is too self-aware when she questions her new habit of calling Franklin names: “… did the name-calling come from a part of me that hadn’t healed?” As readers might expect, Elise begins to make life better: She stands up to the bully, develops a new friendship and salvages the old one.
This story of preteen angst contains many compelling, original moments that, unfortunately, do not combine for a realistic portrayal of blossoming maturity. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-74030-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
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
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
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 TO SCREEN
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