Everything Doherty writes is fresh and enchanting: exquisite language, brimming with love, telling stories all readers want to hear. Fourteen-year-old Holly’s life is full of stories not quite finished, and she longs to find their completion. Her beautiful mother is a British TV personality and her sweet, heroic stepfather Henry is the producer; Holly loves her twin siblings and baby Zoë almost to distraction. But she knows she had another life, one with her father, in the country, with horses and another set of grandparents. She hasn’t seen her father since she was six, when her mother took her away to live with Henry. Additionally, Holly exchanges e-mail with someone named Zed. She doesn’t know anything about Zed, except e-mails that encourage her to think, to ask questions, and to ponder. When Holly’s father finally tracks her down, the two go on a dizzying journey: the car breaks down, Holly’s mother calls the police, and charges of kidnapping hit the news. The duo have a fraught couple of days while Holly’s father fills in the blanks with tales of Holly’s birth, of his parents’ childhood, and of the farm Holly dimly remembers and loved. In the end, Holly has to choose. There are no villains, only people trying to do their best with what they have. Holly’s love of the cello turns out to have a family link—and Zed? Well, Zed’s identity turns out to be the best of the disclosures. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-001341-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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