A busy novel about the importance of compassion and learning to be true to one’s heart, with an endearing protagonist at its...
A chatty fourth-grader named DeeDee is eager to make friends at her new school, but first she must learn what loyalty means.
Bombarded by problems at home, DeeDee encounters more stress in one year than many people confront in a lifetime. Her trailer burns down, which means her family must move again. Her father has left to visit a relative in Mexico and hasn’t come back. She is behind in her school work and struggles to keep up with the help of a special teacher. Watched by older siblings while her mother struggles to earn a living, she eats too much junk food and develops diabetes. Readers will cheer for DeeDee even as she makes bad choices that reveal poor self-esteem: She denies being bilingual, acts embarrassed by a close friend with disabilities, and caves in to bullies because she wants to be part of the popular crowd. DeeDee disappoints herself and must seek encouragement to do what she knows is right, modeling growth. The novel is filled with important issues involving immigration and acceptance of those who are different, though DeeDee’s cheeky narrative voice (“Holy jalapeño”) provides a great deal of levity. Commendably, Belford isn’t afraid to show the cruelty and confusion children evince when their lives are not going as planned.
A busy novel about the importance of compassion and learning to be true to one’s heart, with an endearing protagonist at its core . (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2406-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A rich and rewarding debut.
On a road trip to Nashville to sing in a competition judged by the father she’s never met, 11-year-old Maybelle Lane finds courage she didn’t know she had—and it’s contagious.
The panic-prone narrator’s mother warns her: “nothing good will come” from learning anything more about the father she’s only known as a radio voice. But when she hears about his role in the upcoming contest, she can’t resist signing up. Unexpectedly, her neighbor Mrs. Boggs agrees to drive her there from their trailer-park home in Louisiana. Mrs. Boggs is the strictest teacher in her school, but she has a heart. She even allows Tommy O’Brien, a detested classmate with a difficult home life, to come along after he stows away in the RV. These are well-developed, complex characters who all grow and change over the course of their road trip. The two children are white; Mrs. Boggs is an African American widow, still mourning her husband but strong in other ways. She addresses a stranger’s casual racism directly and quellingly, explaining to Maybelle: “If you’re going to control twenty wriggly eleven-year-olds, you better know how to command a room.” Lonely Maybelle is a budding musician who collects sounds on her old-fashioned tape recorder, labeling the collection she makes on their trip “the sound of happiness,” reflecting her growing maturity in the face of the mission’s mixed success.
A rich and rewarding debut. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9383-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A warm depiction of family and of standing up for what you believe in
After her father loses his job, 11-year-old Carolina moves with her parents and younger brother, Daniel, from their home in Puerto Rico to upstate New York.
She misses that open, breezy home, the flamboyán tree in the backyard, and the weekly art lessons with Señora Rivón. Carolina can’t seem to relate to her 13-year-old cousin, Gabriela, who is half–Puerto Rican and half-white. Carolina is afraid of losing her Puerto Rican customs, such as leaving Dani’s lost tooth for the Ratoncito Pérez to take instead of the Tooth Fairy. At Tía Cuca and Uncle Porter’s suggestion, Carolina and Dani join Gabriela at a farm day camp called Silver Meadows. She meets Gabriela’s friends and a girl named Jennifer who is also an artist. A friendship between Jennifer and Carolina blooms, and after Carolina finds a small abandoned cottage, Jennifer and Carolina turn the cabin into their artists’ colony, sneaking off to beautify it and make art there whenever they see the opportunity. The possible closure of the summer camp looms large over the plot; as Carolina strives to find a space for herself in Larksville, she also tries to figure a way to save the beloved summer camp. The poetry of Robert Frost, Luis de Léon, and Antonio Machado provides thematic counterpoint within Otheguy’s approachable, empathetic, third-person narrative.
A warm depiction of family and of standing up for what you believe in . (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7323-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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