by Brooke Burgess ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 17, 2014
Kids will enjoy it; adults will love it.
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In Burgess’ (Becoming, 2012) YA fantasy, a boy’s life is transformed when he meets a cat with golden eyes.
Ten-year-old Billy Brahm lives in the rural town of Appleton with his adoptive parents. He’s brilliant but also happens to be friendless and accident-prone. When summer starts, he searches for companionship across the road on Mrs. Thomas’ property. There, countless cats prowl. He follows a black-and-white tabby with penetrating golden eyes to the roadside—but Billy’s hit by a car! His leg ends up in a full cast, and Mrs. Thomas suggests that having a friend nearby—the tabby—will help him heal. Billy’s parents reluctantly agree. While medicated and healing, he has a series of powerful dreams featuring the hideous Grey Man, who tells him: “The KEY is close. The GATE shall open.” The spirit also curses Billy, which, after he’s attacked by wasps, seems like no idle threat. Over the summer, the boy has fateful encounters with a local veterinarian, Mr. Jessome, and his lovely daughter, Lynn, as well as with a bookmobile and a terrifying birthday clown. The dreams continue, too, leading Billy closer to a destiny tied to a worrisome secret kept by his parents. Debut author Burgess pours his love for felines to the very brim. He treats readers to cat science, including the theory that, in terms of problem-solving, they are “the mental equivalent of a three-year-old.” There’s also incredibly lovely prose to be found: “The glare of afternoon sun made its pupils shrink to needles floating in jars of oily gold.” In general, though, Burgess may have written a story too subtle for younger teen audiences. Billy’s parents covet information with a crafty menace typically seen in adult thrillers. The emotional payoff, while substantial, happens very late in the tale and is awash in supernatural symbols. Occasionally, purple prose creeps in, as when “the sun burst free from the earth.” Nevertheless, Burgess leaves readers clawing for the sequel.
Kids will enjoy it; adults will love it.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500971656
Page Count: 278
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Louis Sachar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
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by T.P. Jagger ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 4, 2022
A snappy mystery that’s full of heart.
A group of bright friends tackles the puzzle of their lives.
Elmwood, New Hampshire, 11-year-old Gina Sparks is small in stature but big on reporting ongoing dramas for the local newspaper with support from her journalist mom. When an unbelievable scoop comes her way, Gina must rely on her tightknit crew of sixth grade best friends whose initials happen to spell GEEK, a label they choose to proudly reclaim. She and science-minded prankster Elena Hernández, theater kid Edgar Feingarten, and driven math genius Kevin Robinson decide to get to the bottom of things when they learn that the Van Houten Toy & Game Company heir made elaborate plans to leave everything to the town of Elmwood before her death—but only if a member of the community could solve an intricate multistep puzzle. Gina hopes that deciphering the clues and finding the missing fortune will be just the thing to revitalize the down-on-its-luck town and bring the Elmwood Tribune back into the black, saving her mom’s job and Gina’s passion project. The GEEKs work together, using their individual talents and deductive reasoning skills to unravel the mystery. Infused with media literacy pointers, such as the difference between fact and opinion and reminders to avoid bias when reporting, the story encourages readers to think critically. Gina and Edgar read as White; Elena is cued as Latinx, and Kevin is implied Black.
A snappy mystery that’s full of heart. (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-37793-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
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