NATURAL INSTINCT

Name: NATURAL INSTINCT
Author: Barbara Christine; Illus. by Joey Hart Bechler
ISBN: 0-595-34355-4

by Barbara Christine; Illus. by Joey Hart Bechler ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 13, 2005

The breezy discussion of an unusual, appealing hobby keeps this problem novel from becoming overbearingly message-driven.

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This short chapter book tackles common, but intimidating, childhood problems, such as bullies, divorce, step-parents and alcoholic parents.

Twelve-year old Ian shares the hobby of pigeon racing with his newly remarried dad, but he’s also entranced by Ollie, the falcon owned by the family of his new step-cousin, Chad. When Ollie kills Ian’s champion pigeon, Ian and his dad acquire a new racing pigeon with a prestigious pedigree. But the bird has a bad habit that prevents it from racing (flying on to the roof of the house, instead of into the coop), so the boys decide to use Ollie to frighten the pigeon into behaving properly before the big race. Ian relies on his Dad’s judgment, while learning that his new stepmother is actually pretty cool, and that his bully cousin Chad, who has to deal with his drunken father, has his own vulnerabilities. While the author doesn’t gloss over the danger, aside from the original pigeon’s death, all ends well. Although Natural Instinct resembles a beginning chapter book in length, Bechler sets her prose at a fairly advanced level, which will make it appealing to older readers. Hart’s fuzzy charcoal drawings provide a subtle enhancement to the story.

The breezy discussion of an unusual, appealing hobby keeps this problem novel from becoming overbearingly message-driven. (Fiction. 10-12)

Pub Date: July 13, 2005

ISBN: 0-595-34355-4

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ANIMALS | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION

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GOING SOLO

by Roald Dahl illustrated by Quentin Blake ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1986

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A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986

ISBN: 0142413836

Page Count: 209

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
QUENTIN BLAKE'S FANTASTIC JOURNEYS
by Quentin Blake ; illustrated by Quentin Blake

- BOOK REVIEW
<i>MONA LISA</i> AND THE OTHERS
by Alice Harman ; illustrated by Quentin Blake

- BOOK REVIEW
ROALD DAHL SHAPES
developed by Roald Dahl ; illustrated by Quentin Blake

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MONSTER

by Walter Dean Myers ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 31, 1999

The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...

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In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.

Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.

The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)