Comic horror provides adventure and a chance to save the world to 13-year-olds Charlotte and Zee. Charlotte has always been careful to remain unremarkable. She has few friends but few enemies, and does just well enough in school not to get in trouble. All that changes when her cousin Zee arrives from England. Zee is smart, polite, charismatic—and has been followed from England by a mysterious plague that afflicts kids in his vicinity with a terrible weakness. Charlotte and Zee are drawn into a conflict among the Greek gods for control of Hades; only by going down into the underworld can they heal the sick children. Though they rescue the children, unresolved questions lead the way into a second volume. Snarky wit and authorial asides, though occasionally intrusive, keep the adventure lively. A fun and funny tale of youthful heroism. (Fantasy. 9-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4169-0587-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The only real fly in 13-year-old Tottie’s ointment is when embarrassing moments are rendered as “universal truths” in her mother’s newspaper column for the world to read—until 17-year-old Zachary shows up, the spitting image of Tottie’s father. Zachary is the product of a med-school indiscretion and was presumed to have been adopted at birth. Zachary’s first-person narration alternates with Tottie’s, informing readers that his mother chose to raise him alone, and happily, until her death from cancer drives him to his father’s door. His numbness at the devastating turn of events that plunks him into the laps of strangers is effectively rendered, as is Tottie’s unreasoning anger at him for upsetting her world and her father for revealing feet of clay. That the family in its new configuration eventually adjusts is never really in question, but Rodowsky’s deliberate treatment allows her two main characters plenty of room to explore their feelings. If the secondary characters are more than a little too good to be true, this still does nothing to void the honest emotions of the newly joined siblings. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-374-35548-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A clever protagonist surrounded by stock characters and setting heals after the death of her brother. Emily’s father skidded on black ice into a car accident that left Jon dead. Emily, a dancer, has a badly injured knee, her doctor mother hides grief by constantly working, and her father is drinking and unable to write. The devastated family is falling apart. Only Jon’s ghost, hiding in the basement, keeps Emily sane. But her parents want to sell the house since it reminds them of Jon—but if they do, Emily will lose contact with her brother. Through the winter, Emily sabotages the selling. Her efforts—ranging from lies culled from the stories of others to the simpler jelly on the banister—are amusing. As time passes, Emily’s sorrow lessons to acceptance, until she’s prepared to move on from her brother’s consoling ghost and start a new life. A likable heroine and a poignant story, but nothing else here to capture the imagination. (Fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-8050-7337-X
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2003
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