A nicely balanced, believable and interesting view into adolescence, sex education and the power of faith.
A 14-year-old girl tries to follow her Catholic faith but wants to get her first kiss too.
Gloria Jean likes Connor, but on her first date with him she has a bout of the Troubles, an ailment that requires embarrassing emergency trips to the bathroom at awkward times. Connor’s not the only boy around, though; she meets another boy, Ian, in her Confirmation classes. In fact, she learns more about the ethics of kissing from her Confirmation classes than from the sex-ed class she takes at school. She goes through a minor rebellion when she learns that her Troubles are caused by celiac disease, which means that she will no longer be able to take the host in Communion. Wondering why the church requires wheat to be used in the host, she investigates. Even as Gloria Jean breaks a few rules in her anger and frustration, she nevertheless comes across as a basically good and sincere girl. Leigh titles each chapter with an amusing “Commandment” for kissing and writes convincingly from inside the head of her main character, who comes across as a fully realized adolescent. She presents a credible portrait of teen friendships and their angst over romance.
A nicely balanced, believable and interesting view into adolescence, sex education and the power of faith. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8198-7491-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pauline Teen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Groups considering mounting productions that go beyond the popular musicals may want to consider looking at this uneven but...
Newly created plays for young people are not published very often, so this collection merits some attention.
The four dramas, commissioned by the well-respected Minneapolis Children’s Theater Company, are about growing up in ethnically diverse communities, but the plays cover different sets of problems for their young protagonists. Esperanza Rising, loosely adapted from the novel by Pam Muñoz Ryan, is set during the Depression, when Mexican immigrants competed with Okies for agricultural jobs in California. Esperanza changes from a pampered rich girl into a hard worker. The others are very contemporary. In Average Family, a reality-TV contest brings the wealthy Minneapolis Roubidoux family back to a Native American lifestyle they have never known. Also set in Minneapolis, the strongest play (at least on the page), Snapshot Silhouette, features a resilient Somali refugee, Najma, who finds both her voice and a new friend when she moves in with a well-meaning African American mother and her disaffected daughter; they are struggling as a family after the murder of an older daughter. Sasha, an isolated child of a Russian immigrant, finally gets to know her neighbors when she goes looking for a pen to write a research paper on the eponymous Brooklyn Bridge, the most artificial selection.
Groups considering mounting productions that go beyond the popular musicals may want to consider looking at this uneven but thought-provoking anthology. (Drama. 11-14)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8166-7313-1
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Univ. of Minnesota
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
A stronger-than-she-realizes heroine uses her disconcerting telepathic gifts to help others and heal herself in this...
After moving to a rural Australian town, Sasha’s unwelcome premonitions lead her to solve a string of art thefts while tackling her own issues.
Ever since her mum left, Sasha’s “life has turned into a huge, weird disaster area.” The sad, anxious Sasha knows her dad’s trying hard to hold the family together. When he accepts a police job in Manna Creek to “make a new life,” Sasha decides she’ll give “moving to the back of nowhere” a chance, just to make him happy. Unimpressed with the drab town, the bedraggled house behind the police station and the hostile locals who resent the new cop’s kids, Sasha and younger brother Nicky explore with their new pet police dog, King. Sasha’s freaked out when she finds that she and King can communicate telepathically and even more upset when she starts dreaming about local people, past and present, who are about to die. Is there something wrong with her? Should she tell her father or repress everything? In an authentic first-person voice, Sasha fumes at her missing mum, reacts negatively to Manna Creek, supports her father and brother and conveys her fears about her telepathic powers as she leads the tense, fast-moving plot to resolution.
A stronger-than-she-realizes heroine uses her disconcerting telepathic gifts to help others and heal herself in this satisfying adventure. (Paranormal adventure. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61067-063-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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