by Charlotte Gingras ; illustrated by Daniel Sylvestre ; translated by Christelle Morelli & Susan Ouriou ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2018
A spare, emotionally evocative coming-of-age journey.
In this text-and-graphic mashup, a gift from a novelist on a school visit opens up a world of possibilities for Ophelia, a white Quebec teen.
Sensing that 10th-grader Ophelia is troubled, the writer gives her a blank notebook which lights a fire inside her. In it, Ophelia charts her rocky course from emotional isolation toward self-acceptance and friendship. Her year in foster care at age 8 and molestation two years later by her single mother’s boyfriend have eroded the trust between mother and daughter. Ophelia dresses in body-disguising layers, works at a dollar store, occasionally shoplifts, and sneaks out at night, tagging walls with her signature broken-heart graffiti. Discovering a derelict building, she claims it as her creative refuge only to learn that an overweight classmate, another social outcast, has laid claim to it, retreating there to dream of journeying around the world. Reluctantly dividing the space, each makes tentative forays into the other’s world. As they find the courage to look beyond their own pain, they befriend two lesbian classmates and recognize that the hijab-wearing Muslim girls at school are experiencing rejection too. Text and art mesh subtly, the latter ranging from semi-abstract to finely detailed collages, emphatic and powerful. Words scrawled in and over the art are in the original French, their meaning rewarding readers’ investigation but not essential for appreciating their impact.
A spare, emotionally evocative coming-of-age journey. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77306-099-6
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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by Charlotte Gingras and translated by Susan Ouriou
by Patricia McCormick ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 8, 2012
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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by Patricia McCormick ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
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by Malala Yousafzai with Patricia McCormick
by Rae Carson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2011
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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by Rae Carson
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by Rae Carson
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by Rae Carson
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