Ambitious but not wholly successful.
A series of social missteps convinces eighth-grader Elise that remaining silent is preferable to saying the wrong thing and looking foolish.
The transition from home schooling to public school proves more difficult that Elise imagined. Classroom politics, rival friendships, and social media are minefields. And whether it is Bernard Billows’ greasy hair and milky smell or Elise’s own Armenian unibrow, Elise decides that the best way to navigate Green Pasture Middle School is to disappear. Her plan backfires as she manages to alienate her old friend, Mel, and frustrate Conn, a possible ally, leaving her more isolated than ever. When Elise discovers her family’s dark secret, which explains her mother’s neglect and her isolated childhood, she turns inward, falling into hallucinations and fantasy. Elise’s social isolation and pain are realistically portrayed, and her determination to stay silent even when she is accused of stealing and is threatened by Conn’s older brother, Dónal, underscores her distress (even as it may also frustrate readers). Other elements are less-successful. The persistent appearance of a raven that alternately comforts and disturbs Elise hints at an underlying magic that is insufficiently explored. The portrayal of home-schoolers borders on cliché, and the resolution of Elise’s mother’s extreme negligence is far too easy. The book adheres to the white default.
Ambitious but not wholly successful. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4926-5532-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Fade to black and cue the applause!
From Selznick’s ever-generative mind comes a uniquely inventive story told in text, sequential art and period photographs and film.
Orphaned Hugo survives secretly in a Parisian train station (circa 1930). Obsessed with reconstructing a broken automaton, Hugo is convinced that it will write a message from his father that will save his life. Caught stealing small mechanical repair parts from the station’s toy shop, Hugo’s life intersects with the elderly shop owner and his goddaughter, Isabelle. The children are drawn together in solving the linked mysteries of the automaton and the identity of the artist, illusionist and pioneer filmmaker, Georges Méliès, long believed dead. Discovering that Isabelle’s godfather is Méliès, the two resurrect his films, his reputation and assure Hugo’s future. Opening with cinematic immediacy, a series of drawings immerses readers in Hugo’s mysterious world. Exquisitely chosen art sequences are sometimes stopped moments, sometimes moments of intense action and emotion. The book, an homage to early filmmakers as dreammakers, is elegantly designed to resemble the flickering experience of silent film melodramas.
Fade to black and cue the applause! (notes, film credits) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-439-81378-6
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
Opens as standard living-with-disability tale, grows into a heartwarming story about a community discovering activism.
When Ava’s only friend moves away, anxiety makes finding a new social circle daunting.
Ava’s best friend, Zelia, has always been her prop and support. It’s tough being an 11-year-old with a pacemaker; the noncompaction cardiomyopathy she was born with (Ava had heart surgery when she was only 4) combines with intense anxiety to leave Ava self-loathing and socially isolated. Her dad teaches cotillion classes for sixth graders, and Ava, like her older brothers before her, is required to attend, to dance, and to make excruciating small talk. A girl in class invites her to an improv group, and Ava reluctantly agrees. To her shock, improv, which celebrates failure, is amazing for her anxiety. But the improv theater and the waterfront where it’s located are under threat from pricey real estate developers. Saving the area from gentrification will require a committed activist, though, and Ava can barely speak in public. Cotillion and improv give Ava tool sets to use to live with anxiety, and the cause gives her a motivation. The conclusion is optimistically uncomplicated, but in a story that successfully explores the complexities of chronic illness mixed with mental illness, the comfort is welcome. Ava is biracial, Japanese American and white, and lives in a diverse community; the vice principal and Ava’s therapist are black, and the mean real estate developer is almost stereotypically white.
Opens as standard living-with-disability tale, grows into a heartwarming story about a community discovering activism. (author’s note, improv games) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-280349-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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