Ivy hands the perfect crime to a teacher aching to have a mock trial to educate the students about the legal system. Cut and dried, she’s been picked on, bullied and emotionally abused for ages by the “Anns.” When Ms. Gold sees an opportunity, she makes the most of it and in no time, has attorneys appointed, the judge selected and, after some negotiation, a jury of peers. Well, no one wants to be Ivy’s peer, really. Told in a series of transcripts that are the statements of the interested parties, including Ann, Benita and Sophia, also known as the “Evil Three,” Koss delivers the crushing and thoughtless cruelty of adolescents with great accuracy. The words of one of the jurors tell it all: “Popularity is the wrong word. Popularity means everyone likes you. But no one likes sour popular girls; it’s more about fear. The word for them is powerful more than popular. Think soulless zombies; think living dead, hungry for fresh blood. If anything I bet my fellow jurors were afraid they’d become the Anns’ next victim if they got caught sympathizing with Ivy.” (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59643-118-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Deborah Brodie/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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