This is not a story about a jolly, red-suited, fat man and his exploits in the hereafter. Instead, it’s a readable, sometimes humorous, and generally implausible novel about the unusual friendships forged by two pairs of unlike young people in the town of Heaven, Florida (pop. 6). Williams (My Angelica, 1999, etc.) tells of 12-year-old Honey DeLoach, who lives with her parents and obnoxious 14-year-old brother, Willie-Bill, in a place that doesn’t even exist on a map. Into this close-knit and religious family sweeps famous movie star Miriam Season and her two daughters, 12-year-old Christmas and 17-year-old Easter. Readers will wonder why a renowned personality would choose to live in a remote backwater (the later explanation doesn’t really ring true); how she would even know about the town in the first place (not explained); and how Miriam, prior to her move, would know how many boys were in the town (also unexplained). Willie-Bill is smitten with delinquent, bizarre Easter immediately; Honey and Christmas quickly become inseparable friends. Both Season daughters have been ignored by their shallow, self-absorbed mother all their lives and have reacted to her neglect in very different ways. Christmas is desperately sad and lonely; Easter is reprobate and an alcoholic. Under the steadying influence of the DeLoach family and through, literally, the saving grace of Honey’s grandfather, a famous evangelist preacher, Christmas discovers a new meaning to life, and both she and Honey grow in friendship and devotion. Willie-Bill and Easter don’t fare so well. Apparently unsalvageable, Easter exerts her unsavory influence upon the boy, whose judgment has been thoroughly clouded, and tragedy ultimately ensues. Kids may not buy all of this, but there’s appeal in Honey and Christmas’s likable and sympathetic characters. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-399-23436-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
A world-class charmer, Clements (The Janitor’s Boy, 2000, etc.) woos aspiring young authors—as well as grown up publishers, editors, agents, parents, teachers, and even reviewers—with this tongue-in-cheek tale of a 12-year-old novelist’s triumphant debut. Sparked by a chance comment of her mother’s, a harried assistant editor for a (surely fictional) children’s imprint, Natalie draws on deep reserves of feeling and writing talent to create a moving story about a troubled schoolgirl and her father. First, it moves her pushy friend Zoe, who decides that it has to be published; then it moves a timorous, second-year English teacher into helping Zoe set up a virtual literary agency; then, submitted pseudonymously, it moves Natalie’s unsuspecting mother into peddling it to her waspish editor-in-chief. Depicting the world of children’s publishing as a delicious mix of idealism and office politics, Clements squires the manuscript past slush pile and contract, the editing process, and initial buzz (“The Cheater grabs hold of your heart and never lets go,” gushes Kirkus). Finally, in a tearful, joyous scene—carefully staged by Zoe, who turns out to be perfect agent material: cunning, loyal, devious, manipulative, utterly shameless—at the publication party, Natalie’s identity is revealed as news cameras roll. Selznick’s gnomic, realistic portraits at once reflect the tale’s droll undertone and deftly capture each character’s distinct personality. Terrific for flourishing school writing projects, this is practical as well as poignant. Indeed, it “grabs hold of yourheart and never lets go.” (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82594-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
This profoundly moving story is all the more impressive because of its basis in fact. Although the story is fictionalized, its most harrowing aspects are true: “Today, more than two hundred million children between the ages of five and seventeen are ‘economically active’ in the world.” Iqbal Masih, a real boy, was murdered at age 13. His killers have never been found, but it’s believed that a cartel of ruthless people overseeing the carpet industry, the “Carpet Mafia,” killed him. The carpet business in Pakistan is the backdrop for the story of a young Pakistani girl in indentured servitude to a factory owner, who also “owned” the bonds of 14 children, indentured by their own families for sorely needed money. Fatima’s first-person narrative grips from the beginning and inspires with every increment of pride and resistance the defiant Iqbal instills in his fellow workers. Although he was murdered for his efforts, Iqbal’s life was not in vain; the accounts here of children who were liberated through his and activist adults’ efforts will move readers for years to come. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85445-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
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