About the daydreams indulged in by Warren, who lives with his grandmother and his older (high-school) sister Weezie because his mother is a fugitive. Always an activist for peace, the environment, and other such causes, Warren's mother fell in with a Weathermen-type group and has been wanted by the FBI since Warren was five. He still longs for her and fantasizes about their reunion; but it soon becomes clear that, as Weezie well knows, their mother's commitments don't extend to her children. Meanwhile, Warren gluts out on horror films and fills his time, in class and elsewhere, inventing them. Much of the book, too, is filled with Warren's highly inventive scenarios-especially the one about Bubbles, the two-thousand-pound goldfish at large in the sewers, which Warren finishes triumphantly, but just a little regretfully, as the book ends. By then, his grandmother has died (an aunt will move in to take her place) and Warren has burst into tears at the cemetery—not in mourning for his grandmother, but because he finally realizes that his mother will not show up. From that point, it's just a few steps—talks with Weezie, who is bravely realistic but still hurt, and an unsatisfactory phone conversation with his mother (she has called, Weezie informs him, five times in three years)—until Warren, disabused of the more impeding daydream of his mother's return, decides to give up the others too. Still, he allows himself an out: the goldfish, hilariously flushed out to sea, has left a giant egg behind. And that's fine, because Warren's films are highly entertaining. The interlocking fantasies and Warren's liberation from them may be a little too neat, and his mother seems less an individual than a type Byars wants to comment on. But Weezie is a touching character, the grandmother a vivid caricature, and Warren's screenplays give him the starch he needs as a character too.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1982
ISBN: 0064408558
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1982
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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