A lively, engaging tale with relatable tween concerns and themes of friendship and self-worth.
Unexpected friendships help a tween reclaim her creativity in this middle-grade novel set in contemporary Shanghai.
Tackling sixth grade math and living up to parental academic expectations are bad enough, but for almost-12-year-old Xu Haiqing, there are worse problems. She feels estranged from her best friend, Xia Luolan, who left Shanghai to move with her family to Massachusetts. And the tween feels sad and guilty that since her beloved Laoye (grandfather), a master Chinese calligrapher, died, she has not practiced the art herself. Movingly, calligraphy had been a bond between them from the time she picked up a brush at age 3. When Haiqing is encouraged by friends to attend a Chinese calligraphy class, her parents say no. Making art has no place on the path her career-driven mother has mapped out for her daughter’s academic and corporate success. How can Haiqing reclaim “the person I was two years ago and make Laoye proud”? This energetic and relatable first-person narrative is written with an observant eye for time and place in the everyday life of a Chinese tween wrestling with peer relationships, strict parents, dictatorial teachers, academic pressures, and dreams and challenges that seem hopeless. The deft narrative weave does loosen somewhat when portraying Haiqing’s efforts to help a young violinist with stage fright. Intended to propel Haiqing to find her own confidence and her way back to her art—and to mend her friendship with Luolan—this overly involved subplot (secret meetings, eavesdropping, text exchanges, a hidden recording attempt) takes center stage for too long. It’s difficult, too, to attribute sincerity to the instigator of these clandestine meetings and actions, a boy who stabs classmates’ arms with a freshly sharpened pencil as a joke. But despite these missteps, Shao knows whereof she writes. She’s a middle schooler and, like Luolan, a transplant from Shanghai to Massachusetts. The author’s first novel, The Xia Stories: Once in a Lifetime (2019), about Luolan adjusting to life in the United States, was published when she was 10. A sprinkling of Mandarin words is explained in the text and in a glossary.
A lively, engaging tale with relatable tween concerns and themes of friendship and self-worth.Pub Date: April 30, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-7428-5522-4
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
