If you could save one person in history from dying prematurely, should you? This dystopia explores that question through the eyes of a 13-year-old girl in the year 2083 as she comes to understand her connection with another orphan, who is trapped in the events of September 11, 2001.
On the same day that street-wise Shama Katooee in the slums of LowCity D.C. manages to steal a precious BriZance bird egg (a living machine that bonds with its owner’s DNA upon hatching), she receives an unexpected offer of a place at the Chronos Academy in UpCity D.C., the refuge in the sky created by the wealthy and powerful. While struggling to fit in with the other cadets, all raised in great privilege, Shama wonders why Lt. Bazel, a Time Design professor, singled her out. Was it because of their similar backgrounds or does she figure in the political intrigues surrounding control of the QuanTime machine? The third-person narrative focuses mainly on Shama, with intermittent chapters on Maye Jones back in NYC in 2001 and Lt. Bazel. White, who has written about 2083 before (Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083, 2005), subtly poses other questions surrounding advancements in technology and capitalism in this well-imagined and disturbing future.
Readers will be eager for the sequel, so they can learn more about the logic of Chronos time travel and follow the next steps in Shama’s fateful journey. (Science fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60898-105-2
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Namelos
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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