In spite of its predictability, likely to find an appreciative audience among young teens.
Thirteen-year-old Flint, aka “Squint,” is determined to finish his comic book in time to enter it in a contest—and before he loses so much more of his eyesight that he can no longer see to draw.
Squint has a degenerative corneal disease that has left him with thick glasses that do little to correct his vision but make him a magnet for bullying by popular kids. When popular McKell reaches out to him, his first reaction is to protect himself by rejecting her. But then he discovers that she’s dealing with plenty herself; her older brother, Danny, has progeria, a rare disease that’s killing him. Danny has a popular YouTube channel in which he suggests challenges or activities designed to bring people together. After his death, the videos keep coming, serving, poignantly, to draw McKell and Squint closer as he gradually emerges from his self-imposed isolation. Squint’s comic-book tale accompanies and parallels his first-person narration, crafting a fantasy world where Squint can be the superhero of his dreams. But it’s the drawing of the comics that presents the greatest challenge to him with his poor vision. The book assumes a white default, with Squint assumed white and biracial McKell half-Filipina and presumably half-white. That Squint’s drawings are not included seems like a major missed opportunity to broaden this sometimes-maudlin tale of loss and redemption.
In spite of its predictability, likely to find an appreciative audience among young teens. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62972-485-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
A compassionate portrait of a family struggling with painful changes, despite some heavy-handed moments.
Cassie’s whole world changes when her beloved older brother, Sef, goes to war in Iraq.
Before Sef even leaves, Cassie has nightmares about his demise. Once he’s gone, her family jumps at every phone call. To complicate matters, her father supports the war; her mother doesn’t. While her parents are preoccupied, her best friend, Sonia, inexplicably stops talking to her; her older sister, Van, tests out risky behaviors; and her developmentally delayed younger brother, Jack, becomes altogether silent. When a seventh-grade social-studies project leads her to a blog called Blue Sky, written by an Iraqi girl of similar age, Cassie starts to see the war from a different perspective. Blue Sky’s world is more literally torn apart—her city is destroyed, her family is terrorized, their home is often without electricity and running water. While Sullivan strives to raise difficult questions about American involvement in Iraq, some efforts come across as forced. Yet Cassie's first-person narration effectively captures the messiness of life in a loving family when outside-world events intervene. Through it all, Cassie discovers her own strengths and rallies everyone around her, just as Sef would have wanted her to do.
A compassionate portrait of a family struggling with painful changes, despite some heavy-handed moments. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25684-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
Alexander is clearly passionate about science, space exploration, and social justice, but he never allows that passion to...
Gabriel Sandro Fuentes, 11-year-old ambassador of Earth, fends off an alien invasion.
The superb conclusion to this two-part tale of space diplomacy restarts Gabriel's tale at the very moment Ambassador (2014) concluded: when he meets the shockingly human child ambassador of the nomadic, spacefaring Kaen. The Kaen are still out for Gabe's blood, Earth is threatened by the species-destroying Outlast, and (no less world-shaking) Gabriel's father's been deported from the United States to Mexico. Gabriel convinces the Kaen ambassador that he's her best ally against the Outlast, so he joins her on Kaen territory. The Kaen's jaguar-shaped shuttlecraft, Olmec-style spacesuits, and terrible tamales perturb Gabriel, though his fear that aliens may have been responsible for Mayan civilization prove unfounded. In the fascinatingly familiar craft, Gabriel and Kaen join with Ambassador Nadia, the previous child ambassador of Earth, who flew into a time dilation when she tried to fight the Outlast—in 1974. Soviet Nadia and modern American Gabe get on swimmingly, despite the culture clash; after all, they're both diplomats. Nadia has a vision disability, which Alexander handles with welcome nuance. Though Gabriel's not all that believable as an 11-year-old, he's thoroughly credible as an empathetic hero. With Nadia and Kaen, he relies on one hope to stop the Outlast: "Communication is possible. Communication is always possible." Maybe that's true on Earth, as well.
Alexander is clearly passionate about science, space exploration, and social justice, but he never allows that passion to shortchange the crackerjack adventure . (Science fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4424-9767-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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