A coming-of-age tale with sufficient heart, an appealing narrator and an unusual conflict combine for a fine read. (Fiction....
When Ivy’s newly divorced mother takes in a young boarder, the 12-year-old strongly disapproves.
Ivy’s mom joins a local church and then takes in Caleb, also 12 and the son of missionaries. Likable enough, he does everything he can to please, including being exceptionally helpful in entertaining Ivy’s energetic kindergarten-aged younger brother, JJ, a child she’s too-often tasked with mothering. In a believable subplot, Ivy’s best friend has taken on a lot of unpleasant new behaviors in an effort to be accepted by the populars at their school. Ivy is torn between friendship-ensuring compliance with her unreasonable demands and a normal urge to draw the line somewhere. Meanwhile, Caleb tells JJ stories about difficult living conditions in Haiti, but Ivy, in the face of seemingly strong contrary evidence, decides he’s making up the tales. She’s such a grounded, generally sensible kid that her irrational rejections of Caleb feel forced and frustratingly out of character, just as is his unwillingness to set her straight. Ivy’s eavesdropping on her mother’s conversations provides a needed humorous counterpoint to the real issue she’s encountering: the need to take on too much adult responsibility at a time when she’s not quite mature enough to handle it.
A coming-of-age tale with sufficient heart, an appealing narrator and an unusual conflict combine for a fine read. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-374-33566-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
