A Southern tale of faith and doubt. In a matter of months, 12-year-old Esta Lea receives a calling to preach and then is anointed with a healing gift. In the same moment that Esta Lea becomes a healer, her rapscallion uncle, Peter Earl, is saved, and in what seems like no time at all, Peter Earl is taking Esta Lea and her angel-voiced sister, Sarah Louise, on a revival tour through nearby communities. This naturally leads to several comic situations in churches with names like Lukewarm No More, as well as Esta Lea’s growing conviction that Peter Earl is not so much saved as he is personally interested in the offerings generated at the revival meetings. While Esta Lea’s faith in her own messages from God is unassailable, she does wonder why He has chosen such an imperfect vessel, but as she tells her friend Sky, “God can use a person who ain’t perfect. God told me that if He could use a donkey, He could use me.” The revival tour begins to take over the narrative, to the point that subplots are abandoned: Sky’s own faith in the face of her father’s brutality is mentioned as an aside and the ambitious, outwardly-yearning Sarah Louise’s elopement with a college boy is practically parenthetical. Newcomer Clinton has a good ear for language, but this offering needs some work. For a more cohesive and well-developed exploration of faith in the South, go back to Han Nolan’s Send Me Down a Miracle (1996). (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1387-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
Jan, 13, is unhappy about moving to suburban Forest Lawn, baby-sitting her little brother all summer, visiting her grandmother in a nursing home, and most of all, hearing her parents argue about ``the other woman.'' She wants the family back on solid ground, but her only reference for a happier way of life is television. More and more involved in an afternoon soap opera, she almost believes she's part of the show's world. Others in the family are TV junkies, too; her father watches market reports and the news, and her brother has to be pried away from Nintendo. Perhaps Sargent is making a point about the negative influence of TV, but in doing so renders her characters flat and predictable. Jan makes real human contact a few times, and in these exchanges she comes to life. But most of the time she wallows in unhappiness- -described in psychological language that doesn't fit her adolescent voice—or escapes into fantasy. These sequences, bound as they are by soap opera formulas, further homogenize Jan into popular culture; it's just plain hard to care very much about her. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-395-66425-X
Page Count: 152
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
Two inexperienced kayakers are trapped in the Alaskan wilderness by a freak of nature in a patchy but vivid survival adventure. Cody and her cousin, Derek, sneak out for a weekend of camping while their mothers are away in Juneau; when the Hubbard Glacier “surges,” blocking outflow from the Russell Fjord, a rapidly rising water level catches them by surprise, washing away Cody’s kayak and nearly all of their supplies. After an unsuccessful attempt to paddle back to their starting point leaves them wet, hungry, exhausted, and, in Cody’s case, snow blind, a mysterious, masked woodsman brings food before luring Derek away. Cody follows, attempting to save Derek from danger, only to learn that he’s gone along willingly with a reclusive ex-guide (and his wife) whose face was ravaged by frostbite on Denali; they feed the children and lead them to a point from which they can kayak to safety. The “abducting” of Derek (planned so Cody would follow) is never explained satisfactorily, and a heavily foreshadowed run-in with bears remains a tease. Still, the action is rapid and mostly realistic; Shahan describes the natural beauty, as well as the mud, mosquitoes, and other miseries her young people encounter, with authority. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-32303-4
Page Count: 151
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
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