Beautifully done. (Historical fiction. 9-12)
The author of Serafina's Promise (2013) returns with another lyrical novel in verse.
When Grace turns 9, she is forced to leave the daily work of helping Aunt Sara tend her baby brothers and their garden, the daily joy of seeing Mama and Uncle Jim come home each night from the fields. Unlike the rest of her enslaved family, Grace has light skin and blue eyes. (The fact that her father must have been white, with all that implies, is never made explicit.) Her coloring—possibly light enough to pass—makes her more desirable for a house slave in the Missus' and Master's eyes, so Grace must work in the plantation kitchen and even serve at the table. The cook, Aunt Tempie, seems to bow to all of Missus' demands with a compliance Grace can't emulate—though Grace works hard, she sometimes lets her true feelings slip. Missus finally decides that “bringin Grace's family / to the auction block / might finally teach Grace / who she is and / where she belongs.” Grace reacts with courage and resourcefulness, urging her family to flee to the swamps and ensuring they won’t be caught. Told through Grace's eyes in Southern rhythms that approach dialect with a poet's careful sensibility, the story unfolds with a combination of historical precision, honesty, and adventure. Burg describes her research, based in part on narratives of the formerly enslaved collected by the Federal Writers Project, in the backmatter.
Beautifully done. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-93427-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Fade to black and cue the applause!
From Selznick’s ever-generative mind comes a uniquely inventive story told in text, sequential art and period photographs and film.
Orphaned Hugo survives secretly in a Parisian train station (circa 1930). Obsessed with reconstructing a broken automaton, Hugo is convinced that it will write a message from his father that will save his life. Caught stealing small mechanical repair parts from the station’s toy shop, Hugo’s life intersects with the elderly shop owner and his goddaughter, Isabelle. The children are drawn together in solving the linked mysteries of the automaton and the identity of the artist, illusionist and pioneer filmmaker, Georges Méliès, long believed dead. Discovering that Isabelle’s godfather is Méliès, the two resurrect his films, his reputation and assure Hugo’s future. Opening with cinematic immediacy, a series of drawings immerses readers in Hugo’s mysterious world. Exquisitely chosen art sequences are sometimes stopped moments, sometimes moments of intense action and emotion. The book, an homage to early filmmakers as dreammakers, is elegantly designed to resemble the flickering experience of silent film melodramas.
Fade to black and cue the applause! (notes, film credits) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-439-81378-6
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
Opens as standard living-with-disability tale, grows into a heartwarming story about a community discovering activism.
When Ava’s only friend moves away, anxiety makes finding a new social circle daunting.
Ava’s best friend, Zelia, has always been her prop and support. It’s tough being an 11-year-old with a pacemaker; the noncompaction cardiomyopathy she was born with (Ava had heart surgery when she was only 4) combines with intense anxiety to leave Ava self-loathing and socially isolated. Her dad teaches cotillion classes for sixth graders, and Ava, like her older brothers before her, is required to attend, to dance, and to make excruciating small talk. A girl in class invites her to an improv group, and Ava reluctantly agrees. To her shock, improv, which celebrates failure, is amazing for her anxiety. But the improv theater and the waterfront where it’s located are under threat from pricey real estate developers. Saving the area from gentrification will require a committed activist, though, and Ava can barely speak in public. Cotillion and improv give Ava tool sets to use to live with anxiety, and the cause gives her a motivation. The conclusion is optimistically uncomplicated, but in a story that successfully explores the complexities of chronic illness mixed with mental illness, the comfort is welcome. Ava is biracial, Japanese American and white, and lives in a diverse community; the vice principal and Ava’s therapist are black, and the mean real estate developer is almost stereotypically white.
Opens as standard living-with-disability tale, grows into a heartwarming story about a community discovering activism. (author’s note, improv games) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-280349-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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