In 1972, though he’s lived in Palmers Gate, N.J. for three years, ten-year-old Robby still feels like the new kid. He has plenty of friends, but they’ve all known each other since kindergarten. Then Colleen Lardner moves into the house behind Robby’s. She is mostly silent and wears outmoded clothes. Robby’s classmates make fun of her, but Robby senses something wrong in Colleen’s house. He doesn’t know how to help her, and he begins to react violently when playing with his friends. He knows she needs rescuing even if he can’t put into words what she needs rescuing from. To save her he decides he must destroy her prison. At its start, Varela’s first novel is a well-constructed portrait of a confused child. Set in a time before children saw family abuse nightly on television dramas, Robby’s bewilderment is quite real. However, the abrupt conclusion, a violent one, feels contrived. If Robby had no trusted adults in his life, his actions at crisis might be more believable, but his choice is not right for the rest of the story. Not for every collection, but perhaps useful as bibliotherapy or for discussion. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59643-073-7
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
When Peter Harring (12), a legend in his own mind, kisses a mummy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a dare, he reactivates an ancient intrigue: He suddenly finds himself caught between a Pharaoh's daughter, Nephia, and Tachu, a semi-dead sorceress, both struggling for possession of a certain cat mummy buried behind an East Village townhouse. But Peter has help: a skeptical but willing friend; an intellectual younger sister; and a large, possessed dog, named (all too aptly) Pharaoh. The plot's constructed simply and set up heavily; Nephia arranges things so that Peter has little difficulty locating and recovering the cat (though sneaking it into the Met to reunite its remains with hers presents more of a challenge), while Tachu's mesmerizing apparition is no pushover either. A mild supernatural adventure with some comic moments. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 24, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-38033-3
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1992
When Danny's Pop goes back to the VA hospital with recurrent post-traumatic stress disorder, Danny discovers he's not quite as capable of caring for himself as he'd thought. The author of The Adventures of Boone Barnaby (1990) returns to the small town of San Puerco for another engaging, well-told tale of a young person with choices to make. Boone's friend Danny watches the coyotes who live nearby spurn every gift (rightly fearing poison), yet steal unhesitatingly; he sees the local pusher driving ever-fancier cars; he hears that the visiting soccer team has overwhelmed its opponents with intimidation and foul play. Still, fundamentally decent Danny takes his own path- -doing odd jobs, learning to accept freely offered gifts, spending what money he makes responsibly, and refusing to cheat, either in business (he's a born organizer) or on the playing field. Cottonwood makes his points in both obvious and subtle ways and buoys his story with an idiosyncratic, good-natured cast; with Danny's voracious, vividly described hunger (almost a running gag); and with a soccer game in which the winner is not the team with the highest score. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-590-45067-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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