A well-balanced and wide-ranging story for young readers.
Mark’s middle-grade romance combines familiar teen troubles with climate change anxiety.
Clara Montalvo and Jamie Fulton are two eighth graders in Albany, New York, who come from drastically different backgrounds. She’s a new student at the school, a recent survivor of a hurricane in Puerto Rico. As their science class dissects a volcanic explosion that happened on the other side of the world in 1815 and caused unexpected snowfall in their hometown, the students have varying reactions. Jamie believes that the explosion is amazing and focuses on how cool it would’ve been to snowboard in the summer, and Clara’s recent experience with natural disaster makes her feel that Jamie is insensitive. Their sparring in science class gradually transitions into conversations about their personal lives at home. Jamie’s enlisted brother is injured in Afghanistan, and Clara’s father is unreachable back in Puerto Rico. These experiences bring the two closer together as they commiserate and share their worries. Instead of wallowing in their hardships, though, the teens decide to empower each other, their classmates, and their families by working to combat climate change. Mark’s novel will appeal to both a middle-grade and YA audience, as it discusses its heavy topics with finesse and warmth. It’s a compelling blend of a teenage romance and a tale of attempting to make a difference in the world at large. As such, the work effectively focuses on change in one’s one life as well as change in one’s community. The book’s central theme reminds readers of the power of scientific discovery and the importance of engaging in activism and advocacy. As the novel skillfully navigates the teenage relationship, it also creates a hopeful larger narrative.
A well-balanced and wide-ranging story for young readers.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68463-147-6
Page Count: 296
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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