Beautifully executed.
A powerful novel in verse about a girl coping after being ripped from her home.
When 11-year-old Laura Rodríguez Colón calls 911 to save her parents from a possible overdose, authorities remove her from her home and place her into the care of Titi Silvia, her estranged aunt. Laura, who is Puerto Rican, resists “this borrowed life,” anxiously awaiting the day her parents will be released from rehab. One day, she rescues a sick, abandoned puppy she names Sparrow, and he helps her feel better about everything. When the social worker informs her that children aren’t allowed to visit the rehab center, Laura hatches a plan to train Sparrow to be a therapy dog and get inside that way. But when her parents leave without completing the program, Laura learns her stay with Titi may become permanent. Laura’s distress increases when her mother shows up at school only to be sent away, leaving Laura torn between life with her aunt and love for her flawed parents. With the help of caring friends and adults, Laura learns that creating a new home doesn’t have to mean discarding the old. The short sections written in accessible free verse create a segmented structure that mirrors Laura’s experiences and drives the storyline. The clear narrative arc and strong symbolic system make the novel cohere, and Laura’s emotional landscape is realistically contradictory. Arango’s writing is a joy to read, combining strong storytelling, compelling characters, and rich language.
Beautifully executed. (author’s note) (Verse fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9780593566183
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when...
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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