A gripping, thought-provoking adventure to read and discuss.
Lost in the woods beyond their English village, three schoolmates spend a terrifying night during which the boundaries of time dissolve.
Eleven-year-old Charlie and her friend Dizzy set off for an afternoon, searching for “Old Crony,” who left the secret messages Dizzy found in the woods—or so their classmate Johnny Baines has claimed. Instead, frightened by Johnny’s masquerade as a bloodied monster, they run blindly into the trees. Shortly, all three are lost in what is suddenly a trackless, endless forest amid a fearsome storm. Using science theories about time, a quotation from T.S. Eliot, secret messages, and elements of quest-patterned fantasy, Edge creates a historical thriller set in 1933 in a realistically detailed natural setting. The author of The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day (2019) and other time-bending titles populates this tale with a tomboy (11-year-old Charlie loathes her real name, Charlotte), nature-loving Dizzy, and mean boy Johnny Baines, “the toughest kid in school.” Dizzy has light brown skin and a “lolloping walk” thanks to an early bout with polio; the other two are likely white. Charlie’s first-person present-tense narrative is suspenseful, ending with welcome relief. “We can change the world,” Charlie says, as they emerge the next morning. A final chapter summarizes their later lives: how they were, indeed, changed by the events of that night and their contributions in World War II.
A gripping, thought-provoking adventure to read and discuss. (Historical thriller. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-17308-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when...
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
