Valuable historical content weighed down by a slow-moving plot.
A 17-year-old uses her camera as a tool for political activism during the Vietnam War.
Billie Taylor is a white New York City high school student who is inspired by the work of the photojournalists she admires. She’s dating Columbia University freshman Dan Geller, her high school’s golden boy. Things come to a head when they attend an anti-war protest at Columbia that turns violent. Billie’s single mother, shaken both by the chaos of the nation and Billie’s father’s desertion of the family, gets a job in Toronto, feeling that Canada is a safer option. Billie resents having to move and makes plans to return to New York. But when her mother begins housing draft evaders, this political engagement leads Billie to connect with a group of radical Americans working against the war through whom she finds unexpected opportunities to fight back. The story is slow to get started, meandering through Billie’s traumatic childhood memories, Billie and Dan’s relationship, and Billie’s job waitressing at a strip club before she is presented with graphic, disturbing evidence of the horrors being perpetrated by the U.S. military in Vietnam and the chance to participate in the resistance. Readers may benefit from Lewis’ depiction of the day-to-day realities of young Americans and Canadians during the Vietnam War as well as explorations of the importance of protest and considerations of violence perpetrated in the name of a greater good.
Valuable historical content weighed down by a slow-moving plot. (source notes, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781773068992
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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