Werewolves are both danger and dark romantic element in this teen retelling of the traditional tale, soon to be in a theater near you. Seventeen-year-old Valerie is beautiful, fearless and different from others in the medieval village of Daggorhorn, which has been living under a curse requiring them to offer an animal sacrifice to the Wolf every full moon. Suddenly a blood moon appears, and people start dying. Father Solomon heightens the fear, insisting the Wolf is living among them, not in the woods. Valerie, already torn between the love of Henry, the well-off young blacksmith, and Peter, her close childhood friend and woodcutter, comes to doubt everyone, even her beloved Grandmother. The digital enhancements of this e-book—created as background to the upcoming film by Catherine Hardwicke, director of Twilight—include an audio introduction and seven short appendices featuring audio/video clips and images on the writing process, concept artwork, storyboards and design (sets, props, costumes). Neither interactive nor integral to the text, they are the functional equivalent of quickly digested color insert pages in a paperback. Written on the film set in the space of four weeks (according to the embedded video discussion among the director, scriptwriter and young debut author), the mostly pedestrian novelization ends prematurely, with an invitation to visit www.redridinghoodbook.com, which currently promises a final chapter “soon” (a countdown widget indicates “soon” is the movie’s release date, March 11, 2011). It’s hard to know if readers will bother. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)
Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Poppy/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
Some might guess at the baffling, heart-pounding conclusion, but when all the sidewalk characters from Miranda’s Manhattan...
When Miranda’s best friend Sal gets punched by a strange kid, he abruptly stops speaking to her; then oddly prescient letters start arriving.
They ask for her help, saying, “I'm coming to save your friend's life, and my own.” Readers will immediately connect with Miranda’s fluid first-person narration, a mix of Manhattan street smarts and pre-teen innocence. She addresses the letter writer and recounts the weird events of her sixth-grade year, hoping to make sense of the crumpled notes. Miranda’s crystalline picture of her urban landscape will resonate with city teens and intrigue suburban kids. As the letters keep coming, Miranda clings to her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, and discusses time travel with Marcus, the nice, nerdy boy who punched Sal. Keen readers will notice Stead toying with time from the start, as Miranda writes in the present about past events that will determine her future.
Some might guess at the baffling, heart-pounding conclusion, but when all the sidewalk characters from Miranda’s Manhattan world converge amid mind-blowing revelations and cunning details, teen readers will circle back to the beginning and say, “Wow...cool.” (Fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: July 14, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-73742-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2009
A bone-chilling tale not to be ignored by the universe.
If Anne Frank had been a boy, this is the story her male counterpart might have told. At least, the very beginning of this historical novel reads as such.
It is 1939, and Yanek Gruener is a 10-year old Jew in Kraków when the Nazis invade Poland. His family is forced to live with multiple other families in a tiny apartment as his beloved neighborhood of Podgórze changes from haven to ghetto in a matter of weeks. Readers will be quickly drawn into this first-person account of dwindling freedoms, daily humiliations and heart-wrenching separations from loved ones. Yet as the story darkens, it begs the age-old question of when and how to introduce children to the extremes of human brutality. Based on the true story of the life of Jack Gruener, who remarkably survived not just one, but 10 different concentration camps, this is an extraordinary, memorable and hopeful saga told in unflinching prose. While Gratz’s words and early images are geared for young people, and are less gory than some accounts, Yanek’s later experiences bear a closer resemblance to Elie Wiesel’s Night than more middle-grade offerings, such as Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars. It may well support classroom work with adult review first.
A bone-chilling tale not to be ignored by the universe. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-45901-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
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