Tess, 12, finds emotional comfort in a stray cat she befriends after running away from her efficient, sensible father and stepmother to live with her slapdash, irresponsible mother. When Tess first meets her “enemies,” her soon-to-be stepmother and stepsiblings, she tells herself that these “are the aliens who have captured my father, and I shall not like them.” And Tess, a poor student who is messy and feels trapped by her tidy stepmother’s multitude of rules, dislikes living with them. But the final straw comes when Annie, Tess’s three-year-old stepsister, destroys an extra-credit social-studies assignment Tess has been diligently working on. Fed up and furious, Tess runs away, hoofing it to her mother’s home, which requires camping overnight at a state park. At the campgrounds, a stray cat unexpectedly adopts her, and follows her all the way to her mother’s small, cramped condo. Tess, who has been feeling lonely and unloved, develops a powerful connection to her feline friend, but her mother hates cats and her dad is allergic. How Tess solves these various difficulties is the meat of the story, but it’s a surprisingly bland dish. Tess’s mother is so indifferent to Tess’s needs that she borders on negligent, the result being that Tess’s rather flavorless self-sacrificing father and well-organized stepmother look good in contrast. This, in turn, causes the narrative to feel lopsided, making Tess’s final decision seem almost preordained. Nonetheless, readers, especially children of divorce, should relate to Tess and find her a sympathetic protagonist. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 22, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-09644-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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
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