At times riotous, often nostalgic and always entertaining.
In Tweedt’s debut YA thriller, armed baddies working a fiendish plot at a summer camp don’t count on a plucky young boy and his pals.
Greyson arrives at Morris College All-Sports Camp determined to make the best of it. But when a brutish cafeteria worker, believing the boy has overheard critical information, physically threatens him, Greyson takes it upon himself to expose whatever scheme the man felt necessary to protect. He enlists the help of his friends and sneaks into the observatory, the apparent command center for a cluster of scoundrels. Tweedt’s novel has all the prerequisites for a summer-camp story: Brandon, the sympathetic counselor; Trevor and Tucker, the interchangeable jerks looking to knock Greyson down during lunch or on the football field; and Sydney, the love interest. Also joining Greyson are the friends he makes along the way, including Liam, the stuttering shy one; Patrick, who seems to hate everything; and twins Jarryd and Nick, whose loyalty is rounded out by ready-to-fire wisecracks. A number of memorable touches supplement the camp setting, like campers sneaking out past bedtime and counselors telling ghost stories, but the most notable is the relentless summer heat—lots of sweating, complaints, and looking forward to showers and air conditioning. In the book’s final act, which takes up nearly a third of the story, Greyson, Sydney and their fellow campers set out to thwart the villains’ plan, which involves a potentially deadly explosion. The series of primed set pieces never lets up until the end. Choosing a favorite character may be difficult, but it’s Jarryd who nearly steals the show, if for nothing else than his stoicism: After taking Greyson’s syrupy pancake to the face for referencing Sydney’s backside, Jarryd coolly asserts, “I respect that.” But in the end, it’s the titular hero who’s most admirable; rather than holster his gun, he stores everything he needs in a fanny pack—and anyone who can make a fanny pack look cool is definitely worth rooting for.
At times riotous, often nostalgic and always entertaining.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-1480236462
Page Count: 296
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Sensitive subject matter that could have benefited from a subtler, more sober touch.
A Jewish girl joins up with Polish resistance groups to fight for her people against the evils of the Holocaust.
Chaya Lindner is forcibly separated from her family when they are consigned to the Jewish ghetto in Krakow. The 16-year-old is taken in by the leaders of Akiva, a fledgling Jewish resistance group that offers her the opportunity to become a courier, using her fair coloring to pass for Polish and sneak into ghettos to smuggle in supplies and information. Chaya’s missions quickly become more dangerous, taking her on a perilous journey from a disastrous mission in Krakow to the ghastly ghetto of Lodz and eventually to Warsaw to aid the Jews there in their gathering uprising inside the walls of the ghetto. Through it all, she is partnered with a secretive young girl whom she is reluctant to trust. The trajectory of the narrative skews toward the sensational, highlighting moments of resistance via cinematic action sequences but not pausing to linger on the emotional toll of the Holocaust’s atrocities. Younger readers without sufficient historical knowledge may not appreciate the gravity of the events depicted. The principal characters lack depth, and their actions and the situations they find themselves in often require too much suspension of disbelief to pass for realism.
Sensitive subject matter that could have benefited from a subtler, more sober touch. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-14847-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Hillenbrand takes license with the familiar song (the traditional words and music are reproduced at the end) to tell an enchanting story about baby animals picked up by the train and delivered to the children’s zoo. The full-color drawings are transportingly jolly, while the catchy refrain—“See the engine driver pull his little lever”—is certain to delight readers. Once the baby elephant, flamingo, panda, tiger, seal, and kangaroo are taken to the zoo by the train, the children—representing various ethnic backgrounds, and showing one small girl in a wheelchair—arrive. This is a happy book, filled with childhood exuberance. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201804-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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