Troubled teen meets totemic catalyst in Mikaelsen’s (Petey, 1998, etc.) earnest tribute to Native American spirituality. Fifteen-year-old Cole is cocky, embittered, and eaten up by anger at his abusive parents. After repeated skirmishes with the law, he finally faces jail time when he viciously beats a classmate. Cole’s parole officer offers him an alternative—Circle Justice, an innovative justice program based on Native traditions. Sentenced to a year on an uninhabited Arctic island under the supervision of Edwin, a Tlingit elder, Cole provokes an attack from a titanic white “Spirit Bear” while attempting escape. Although permanently crippled by the near-death experience, he is somehow allowed yet another stint on the island. Through Edwin’s patient tutoring, Cole gradually masters his rage, but realizes that he needs to help his former victims to complete his own healing. Mikaelsen paints a realistic portrait of an unlikable young punk, and if Cole’s turnaround is dramatic, it is also convincingly painful and slow. Alas, the rest of the characters are cardboard caricatures: the brutal, drunk father, the compassionate, perceptive parole officer, and the stoic and cryptic Native mentor. Much of the plot stretches credulity, from Cole’s survival to his repeated chances at rehabilitation to his victim being permitted to share his exile. Nonetheless, teens drawn by the brutality of Cole’s adventures, and piqued by Mikaelsen’s rather muscular mysticism, might absorb valuable lessons on anger management and personal responsibility. As melodramatic and well-meaning as the teens it targets. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-380-97744-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
A poem on the last page, in both English and Spanish, seems superfluous after such a silently wonderful visual treat.
This sweet, beautifully illustrated snow adventure uses creative design to tell one wordless story as if it were two.
On each double-page spread, a page-and-a-half forms one large blue and white picture tastefully highlighted with browns and golds. The other half-page features three tiny black-and-white drawings, vertically stacked but not separated by dividers. In both narratives, a girl builds a big polar bear out of snow, goes inside to bed, and falls into a dreamy frozen landscape. She plays with two polar bears, meets a baby seal and an arctic fox, and curls up to sleep between the two bears in an enchantingly cozy snow-sleep picture. Whether the adventures are dreams or reality doesn’t especially matter. Most interesting is the juxtaposition of large color pictures and the tiny black-and-whites: Rockhill avoids a facile formula (he could easily have taken the fantasy vs. reality route) and lets the content of the two complement—without repeating—each other. In the transition from bed to snowscape, a blanket edge slowly becomes a scarf and a snowdrift-like pillow becomes a hat. Those vertical hanging colors—are they curtain edges or the Aurora Borealis? This safe and thrilling night comes to an end as the girl wakes and ventures outside to find that her snowbear has melted—or maybe sauntered off to the Arctic.
A poem on the last page, in both English and Spanish, seems superfluous after such a silently wonderful visual treat. (3-6)Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-9724973-1-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A layered and thoughtful girl-meets-horse story with believable main characters.
In Brown’s middle-grade novel, a wild horse and a teenage girl must overcome challenges to learn to trust others.
In rustic Wyoming, Jesse Nolan, a 13-year-old white girl, wants nothing more than a horse of her own. At a special auction of wild mustangs that were captured in a federal herd-thinning operation, she quickly has her heart set on a young “curly,” a rare breed with a curly-haired coat. Jesse has the winning bid on that horse, but she must leave the newly named Curly Girl with her horse-savvy Uncle Joe for training before she can safely ride her. Jesse prepares for Curly Girl’s arrival, knowing that she’ll be responsible for the animal’s upkeep at the boarding facility. When a panicked Curly Girl is evicted from the stable for causing damage, Jesse reluctantly accepts the only solution—for Curly Girl to live at Jesse’s estranged father’s nearby ranch. Brown’s novel is based on an original story by the author and debut illustrator McDonald, both of whom are advocates for wild horses. Jesse faces challenges with Curly Girl, but she also confronts her own resentment at her dad, due to his controlling nature and her parents’ separation. However, this is as much Curly Girl’s story as it is Jesse’s; the novel shifts between the teenager’s narrative, told from a third-person perspective, to Curly Girl’s first-person tale. Over the course of the novel, the horse offers poignant observations regarding her life before her capture and her fear and confusion afterward. The story also addresses Curly Girl’s overwhelming desire to return to her old home and herd. Brown, the author of Hidden Star (2016), deepens the content as Curly Girl and Jesse slowly progress toward a sense of acceptance. The author also presents an informative history of horses from prehistoric times in the guise of Jesse’s classroom project; she also shows her respect for her young readers by not sugarcoating the terror that the wild horses feel during the government’s culling process. McDonald effectively complements the text with expressive, informed colored-pencil illustrations of horses in human and natural environments.
A layered and thoughtful girl-meets-horse story with believable main characters.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-46964-5
Page Count: 138
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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