Platt’s first novel is a lively girl-and-horse story set in Oregon that is full of fascinating detail about how these animals are trained to be champions. Katie Durham has one leg that is shorter than the other. When a foal is born of a distinguished racing line on a nearby horse farm, his legs are so crooked that his owner, Mr. Ellis, decides to have him euthanized. Katie, seeing in the animal a reflection of her own handicap, begs Mr. Ellis to let Willow King live, and promises that she’ll take care of him. With the help and guidance of old John, Mr. Ellis’s chief trainer, Katie begins the long and arduous process of first straightening Willow King’s twisted legs and then training him to be the champion racer that she knows he can be. At the same time, the horse’s courage and perseverance inspire Katie to come to terms with her own physical problems, and become the person she can be, too. Horse-crazy readers will find themselves immersed in the racing world, and will root for Willow King and for Katie all the way. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-679-88655-9
Page Count: 193
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998
Engaging, suspenseful, and with nearly all the vivid fighting confined to robots, this gritty tale is perfect for a younger...
In a nasty, hyperstratified future, white twins Vick and Tara are on their own in the scary streets of Chicago, where economic disaster has laid waste to the poorer sections of the city.
Although Tara is autistic—communicative but faced with worsening symptoms—she has a remarkable talent for designing the robot watchdogs that everyone uses for a variety of purposes. The pair scrounge for saleable electronics all day long in the blocks-long dump that’s developed in their part of the city, and at night Tara tinkers. But after she finds an amazing chip among the debris, she crafts a seemingly sentient little critter, Daisy. Daisy’s astonishing capabilities immediately attract the attention of the cruel overlord of the Chicago robotics world, Ms. Alba, an Asian woman who uses a group of imprisoned, mostly child workers to turn out watchdog robots. Her minions kidnap the siblings, but with Daisy’s help they break out. It’s only after they begin to accept help from other street kids that the believably portrayed Vick and Tara start to make a bit of progress. The grim setting is vividly depicted, and the clever-kid–against–mean-adult trope is both plausible and very satisfying. The fast-paced narrative readily conveys the looming sense of ever present danger.
Engaging, suspenseful, and with nearly all the vivid fighting confined to robots, this gritty tale is perfect for a younger audience than most post-apocalyptic stories. (Post-apocalyptic adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1384-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Funny, sure-handed, wise.
Carl tries to change his father’s frugal behavior over the course of a summer.
Narrator Carl, 12, believes that his problem is his relentlessly optimistic, handy dad, who sees their life in a small trailer with pigs (fed partly from dumpster forays), chickens, and a garden as rich and full. But Carl’s heart has been captured from afar, and he believes that being noticed will take an improved kind of being “lookatable.” Carl’s father regards money as stored human energy (and therefore sees energy as a kind of currency)—he “leans well into the concept of being practical and has never been one to honor the cosmetic side of things” and is an accomplished barterer who can’t pass up a garage sale. Carl’s pink, feminine overalls come from a garage sale, and his too-small underwear hails from another bargain source. Carl’s garrulous, singularly imaginative sidekick Pooder (he “has made tangents an art form”) offers color commentary, advice, comic relief, and perspective by turns. Carl takes inspiration from a pamphlet on puppy training in his plan to reward good behavior and ignore less desirable (as in dumpster diving for shoes) in his dad. The tall-tale, anecdotal quality of Carl’s story is entertaining with its recitation of disastrous, smelly, embarrassing, dangerous, and misguided moments. Both father and son turn out to be likable heroes. Characters are assumed White.
Funny, sure-handed, wise. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-31417-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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