Original, hilarious, thought-provoking and wicked smart: not to be missed.
Kevin Phifer, 13, a black seventh-grader in 1990s Richmond, Va., and hero of this sparkling debut, belongs in the front ranks of fiction’s hormone-addled, angst-ridden adolescents, from Holden Caulfield to the teenage Harry Potter.
Kevin wants a fade, thinking the stylish haircut will bolster his shaky standing in the cutthroat world of middle school, where he’s just one friend away from eating lunch alone. But his mother, a church secretary and solo parent studying for a nursing degree at night, won’t even try. Expressing his frustration leads to a week’s grounding. Tyrell and his entourage of bullies make Kevin’s life miserable at school. In science lab, Aisha, girl of Kevin’s dreams, points out his “mushy tushy.” Sandbagged by dizzyingly abrupt mood shifts, Kevin hurtles from altruism to craven self-interest, mature self-knowledge to wild fantasy. His anchor in rough seas is Uncle Paul, a quiet, manly museum security guard. Weary of hiding his sexual orientation, Paul’s recently come out to family and friends but has yet to tell Kevin, for whom “faggot” is the worst insult there is. Paul’s perspective, with its temporal and social context, enriches and deepens the narrative, offering an effective contrast to Kevin’s volatile reality, where “now” is all that counts.
Original, hilarious, thought-provoking and wicked smart: not to be missed. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9884804-3-8
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Curbside Splendor
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
Chilling, difficult, and definitely not for readers without a solid understanding of the Holocaust despite the relatively...
A young boy grows up in Adolf Hitler’s mountain home in Austria.
Seven-year-old Pierrot Fischer and his frail French mother live in Paris. His German father, a bitter ex-soldier, returned to Germany and died there. Pierrot’s best friend is Anshel Bronstein, a deaf Jewish boy. After his mother dies, he lives in an orphanage, until his aunt Beatrix sends for him to join her at the Berghof mountain retreat in Austria, where she is housekeeper for Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. It is here that he becomes ever more enthralled with Hitler and grows up, proudly wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth, treating others with great disdain, basking in his self-importance, and then committing a terrible act of betrayal against his aunt. He witnesses vicious acts against Jews, and he hears firsthand of plans for extermination camps. Yet at war’s end he maintains that he was only a child and didn’t really understand. An epilogue has him returning to Paris, where he finds Anshel and begins a kind of catharsis. Boyne includes real Nazi leaders and historical details in his relentless depiction of Pierrot’s inevitable corruption and self-delusion. As with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2006), readers both need to know what Pierrot disingenuously doesn’t and are expected to accept his extreme naiveté, his total lack of awareness and comprehension in spite of what is right in front of him.
Chilling, difficult, and definitely not for readers without a solid understanding of the Holocaust despite the relatively simple reading level. (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62779-030-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The sudden death of her twin leaves a teenager struggling with grief and her fragile sense of self in this absorbing, inwardly focused import from Sweden, part fiction, part memoir. So close are the sisters that after Cilla is killed by a motorist Tina can still hear her voice, still see her just by looking in a mirror, still hold conversations; she even finds herself taking on some of Cilla’s character traits, seeking an inner balance that she has lost. Able to describe her experiences only by switching back and forth between third person and first, Tina observes the different ways those around her grieve, and finds temporary solace in many places: reading and writing poetry, performing on stage, playing her violin, trying a brief but intense fling at summer camp, even talking to a perceptive psychologist—but unlike many such stories, there is never any sense here that the authors are running through a catalog of coping strategies, or offering trite platitudes. A year later, Tina discovers that, in forming new friendships and moving on in life, she has passed the worst of her pain, and found ways to distance herself from Cilla without losing her completely. In a smooth, natural-sounding translation, this is a thoughtful, complex reminiscence. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: March 23, 1999
ISBN: 91-29-63935-2
Page Count: 247
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
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