Heartfelt and utterly original; a book about an unlikely alliance that should touch readers of all ages.
The arrival of a distant relative shakes up the Buras household in new and unexpected ways in this debut middle-grade novel.
With bad teeth and a checkered past, Dwight “Dewey” Tomlinson has been kicked around by life. So when a tip from a telephone psychic convinces him that connecting with eighth-grader Max Buras will clear up his karma, the 44-year-old makes a beeline for Boise, Idaho. Max is initially skeptical of Dewey’s claims. After all, who has ever heard of “bio-harmonic convergence”—Madam Hagar’s mystical explanation for why two people can act as each other’s good luck charms. But soon Max is a believer. Dewey hits a “hot streak” on the video poker machine at his hotel. And before long, the unpopular Max—manager of the school golf team with a body “shaped like a bag of marshmallows”—starts to see his luck turn as well. Even more stunning, after going four years without speaking, Max’s 10-year-old brother, Gabe, begins to talk again. Everything, Max reasons, is tied to Dewey’s arrival. So when the revelation of a chilling incident from Dewey’s past sends the tall man packing, it’s up to Max and his sister, Sadie, to keep Dewey—and the good luck he brings—in their lives. Morfit invests deeply in his characters, and the move pays off. Although the book’s first two chapters are relegated largely to scene-setting, the reader, slowly but surely, gets to know (and love) Max and Dewey. And by the time the plot heats up, it’s impossible not to root for the two protagonists in this powerful coming-of-age tale. Morfit’s treatment of Max expertly encapsulates the adolescent experience. As the novel progresses, the formerly flabby teen ditches his Coke-bottle glasses and starts working out. When a friend’s father remarks on his new physique, Max is conflicted: “For some reason he felt sort of apologetic about it, about not being the same kid who’d been Andy’s best friend, who’d whiled away all those after-school hours playing Ping-Pong and Scrabble.”
Heartfelt and utterly original; a book about an unlikely alliance that should touch readers of all ages.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9964655-0-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Elevate Fiction
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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