Inspirational, realistic fiction that will appeal to young fans of martial arts.
In Bernstein’s debut middle-grade novel, a 12-year-old boy experiences loss and finds friendship studying karate in 1999 New York City.
Following the deaths of his parents three years earlier, Alan Michaels lives at “Base Camp”—a home for orphaned and troubled boys. Often teased for being biracial, Alan finds community when he earns a scholarship at a dojo, Sensei Hideki’s School of Karate. He grows particularly close to classmate Dale Carroll, a successful lawyer. Dale takes Alan to a baseball game and a boxing gym and even asks Alan to lead him into the ring at an important boxing tournament. The boy dreams of being adopted by Dale and his wife, June, but soon notices something troubling—his mentor seems unwell. His concern only grows when Dale’s attendance at the dojo becomes sporadic. The author balances Alan’s lighter struggles, like impressing his crush, Kathy, with heftier topics like bullying, loss, and grief. When Dale dies of cancer, Alan, bereft, transforms his sadness into empowerment by honing his karate skills. Alan’s experiences in the world of the dojo, which Bernstein renders well, often serve him in the outside world. For example, when a bully threatens him, he reacts calmly, recalling Sensei Hideki’s advice (“Violence is not the way to solve things. Don’t look for trouble. Always walk away from a fight”). Although some may find comfort in the epilogue depicting Alan’s successful adulthood, it prevents readers from drawing their own conclusions. Each member of the multinational cast gets a complicated backstory—at the expense of momentum. Still, Alan’s likability and the depth of his relationships push the story forward. In addition, Bernstein uses the New York City setting to good effect, giving young readers background on New York City landmarks (“Central Park is almost all man made—it was mostly a rocky, swampy area that had been turned into a beautiful park”).
Inspirational, realistic fiction that will appeal to young fans of martial arts.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73216-510-6
Page Count: 159
Publisher: Outsider Press
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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