In a quirky but deliberate voice both serious and funny, Lily navigates her complicated life by writing to John Wayne. Her beloved stepfather died “three hard years” ago, leaving Lily with a passive mother. Her father lives nearby, but she worries about his baby-blue stockings and bejeweled anklet. Add in the insecurity of starting high school, an old best friend who’s getting shallower all the time, a brother-in-law who’s battering her sister and a creepy man moving into the house, and Lily needs a hero. She tells herself to “Saddle up,” as Wayne plays Lily’s father/savior figure and role model simultaneously. New friends and a requited crush don’t override past and present threats, but they help. The use of a story of a white woman kidnapped by Indians as a contrapuntal device to highlight Lily’s mother’s passivity is somewhat problematic in this unabashedly left-leaning narrative, as is the use of images of fatness as indicators of evil. But readers will respond to the self-aware but vulnerable Lily as she grows over time into her own unique hero. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7387-1051-8
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Flux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this sequel to Freak the Mighty (1993), Max, the freakishly gigantic child, comes to the rescue of Rachel, called Worm because of her devotion to books. When he takes her away from her abusive stepfather, the Undertaker, Max is accused of kidnapping, and the two embark on a cross-country odyssey to find her real father. Pursued by police and the vengeful Undertaker, they make their way to Montana, where Worm’s father was killed years before in a mine disaster and where they face a final confrontation with the Undertaker in the depths of the mine. While the book is populated by stock characters from central casting (an aging hippie in a ’60s-style bus, a train-hopping hobo with a heart of gold, a pair of charming con artists, and, of course, the evil Undertaker), Philbrick avoids making it into a cartoon. The story moves along at a good clip, the friendship between Max and Worm is warm, and the other characters give the proceedings a touch of melodrama. Despite Max’s certainty that happy endings don’t happen, everything is tied up satisfyingly at the end. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-590-18892-5
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1998
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre.
Survival camp? How can you not have bad feelings about that?
Sixteen-year-old nerd (or geek, but not dork) Henry Lambert has no desire to go to Strongwoods Survival Camp. His father thinks it might help Henry man up and free him of some of his odd phobias. Randy, Henry’s best friend since kindergarten, is excited at the prospect of going thanks to the camp’s promotional YouTube video, so Henry relents. When they arrive at the shabby camp in the middle of nowhere and meet the possibly insane counselor (and only staff member), Max, Henry’s bad feelings multiply. Max tries to train his five campers with a combination of carrot and stick, but the boys are not athletes, let alone survivalists. When a trio of gangsters drops in on the camp Games to try to collect the debt owed by the owner, the boys suddenly have to put their skills to the test. Too bad they don’t have any—at all. Strand’s summer-camp farce is peopled with sarcastic losers who’re chatty and wry. It’s often funny, and the gags turn in unexpected directions and would do Saturday Night Live skits proud. However, the story’s flow is hampered by an unnecessary and completely unfunny frame that takes place during the premier of the movie the boys make of their experience. The repeated intrusions bring the narrative to a screeching halt.
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8455-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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