A popular adult author tries her hand at a dystopian children’s novel, with mixed results. In a future where only a few habitable islands remain on waterlogged Earth, ten-year-old Honor lives on Island 365 with her unconventional scientist parents. Though Honor attends a government school that espouses the propaganda of Earth Mother (the environmental version of an Orwellian Big Brother), her parents are part of a whisper campaign against the push to “Enclose” all remaining land to protect it from the wild weather patterns. They also take issue with the ban on any books, music or art that doesn’t come from “The Corporation.” Eventually Honor’s parents are arrested for their radical views and Honor is forced on a quest to the unregulated “other side of the island” to find them. Though Goodman’s straightforward and sometimes emotionally distant environmental fable suffers in comparison to similarly themed titles, such as Lowry’s subtle Giver (1993) and Westerfeld’s exciting Uglies (2007), the simple prose, clear message and timely topic still make this a solid introduction to the genre for middle-grade readers. (Science fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59514-195-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2008
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Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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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 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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