Two children and a dog offer a tentative hope for a strife-ridden, modern South Africa in this debut from Ferreira, a Reuters correspondent who grew up there. Eleven-year-old Vusi is Zulu. His life revolves around Gillette, the three-legged pup he has reared and trained in secret, hoping that despite his handicap the dog will become a true Zulu hunting dog. Twelve-year-old Shirley is English. She loves the sprawling farm she has grown up on and despairs at her father’s determination to send her to a boarding school instead of the newly desegregated local school. They meet in the bush and become fast—and very secret—friends. The present-tense narrative moves back and forth between the two children’s perspectives, occasionally broadening to include Vusi’s father, a beleaguered taxi driver whose livelihood is threatened by gangs; Shirley’s father, a dyed-in-the-wool racist who is less than happy with the post-apartheid era; and Robert Rudolph, a miraculously enlightened white farmer. Vusi is a meticulously drawn character, whose single-minded adoration of his dog is universal, but whose beliefs and concerns are uniquely Zulu. The land-loving Shirley is almost as well drawn; her maturing perspective causes her to question the truths that have sustained her since birth. The white secondary characters are less well developed: Shirley’s father is almost wholly despicable, Rudolph almost saintly in his willingness to find a path to peace. The inevitable clash between European and Zulu occurs, and just as inevitably, enormously improbably, and highly satisfactorily, Gillette saves the day, making possible a rapprochement. If the plotting and character development are not always as smooth as they should be, the narrative nevertheless offers glorious description of, as well as a valuable insight into, a part of the world that probably has never hit the radar screen of most young readers. A historical note precedes the story, contextualizing the tensions presented within. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2002
ISBN: 0-374-39223-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
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
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals.
Is dolphin-assisted therapy so beneficial to patients that it’s worth keeping a wild dolphin captive?
Twelve-year-old Lily has lived with her emotionally distant oncologist stepfather and a succession of nannies since her mother died in a car accident two years ago. Nannies leave because of the difficulty of caring for Adam, Lily’s severely autistic 4-year-old half brother. The newest, Suzanne, seems promising, but Lily is tired of feeling like a planet orbiting the sun Adam. When she meets blind Zoe, who will attend the same private middle school as Lily in the fall, Lily’s happy to have a friend. However, Zoe’s take on the plight of the captive dolphin, Nori, used in Adam’s therapy opens Lily’s eyes. She knows she must use her influence over her stepfather, who is consulting on Nori’s treatment for cancer (caused by an oil spill), to free the animal. Lily’s got several fine lines to walk, as she works to hold onto her new friend, convince her stepfather of the rightness of releasing Nori, and do what’s best for Adam. In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. Siblings of children on the spectrum will identify with Lily. If the tale flirts with sentimentality and some of the characters are strident in their views, the whole never feels maudlin or didactic.
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-67605-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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