bookshelf

VICTORY JO

Name: VICTORY JO
Author: Charles Moore
ISBN: 978-1-5141-6301-6

by Charles Moore ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2016

An engaging tale of a contemporary Navajo girl’s connection to her horse and culture.

bookshelf

A blind Navajo teenager and her thoroughbred head to the Kentucky Derby.

In this debut novel, Moore introduces Victoria Jo Pinto, a blind high school junior living with her brother and grandfather on the Navajo reservation. After Victoria and her brother, Calvin, stop a stranger from beating a horse in a restaurant parking lot, they find themselves the owners of a thoroughbred who loses every race. The family spends time training the horse, now named Victory Jo after her new owner, and Calvin starts racing, slowly teaching the animal how to beat local competitors. Victoria also bonds with the horse, though a riding accident makes her reluctant to take the reins herself. As Victory Jo begins to show promise as a racehorse, Victoria decides to enter the thoroughbred in the Kentucky Derby. A collective fundraising effort both on the reservation and off supplies the entry fee, and a caravan of supporters helps escort Victory Jo to Kentucky, leading the Navajo Nation president to observe that “except for the forced march our people made in 1863, there have never been this many of our people away from home at the same time.” Will Victory Jo finally reach her potential in this Triple Crown race? Moore has lived on the Navajo reservation, and shows familiarity with both the physical environment and Navajo culture. (That experience does not always produce an authentic rendering of the culture; the use of “Medicine Man” instead of hataalii, when Navajo words are used in other instances, is grating.) The plot requires some suspension of disbelief, and readers familiar with horse racing will note liberties taken with the entry process. But Victoria is a compelling protagonist, balancing her heritage with the concerns of a typical teenager, and frequent but minor grammatical and punctuation errors (for example, “the Stalley’s”) do not keep the story from being an enjoyable one.

An engaging tale of a contemporary Navajo girl’s connection to her horse and culture.

Pub Date: March 16, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5141-6301-6

Page Count: 246

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

bookshelf

Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

bookshelf

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.