A bitter, middle-aged teacher and a harshly used teenage mother reach out to each other in this mean-streets story from Grant (Mary Wolf, 1995, etc.). Margaret Johnson teaches at a city school neglected by the administration and the students. By day she watches teenagers trickle in bruised, high, cynical, hopeless; by night she sits at home recalling her miscarriages and failed marriage, fretting over the school’s shameful facilities, thinking about babies having babies. She’s especially drawn to Raina, who shows up only to drop off beautifully written, horrible tales of childhood abuse and neglect, of living on the streets with a junkie, of watching him killed only moments after she agreed to prostitute herself for his habit. Although Raina puts up a tough front, her stories are an explicit cry for help. Nothing in her life, however, has taught her how to accept help when it’s offered, and as Margaret is understandably reluctant to open herself to further hurt, there is a gulf between them that they both must cross. Grant creates a nightmarish world in which the few who care are nearly overwhelmed by the sick, desperate, predatory, indifferent, and damaged. She takes readers on a scary, exhausting ride, but her women are strong enough to survive, to overcome their differences, and, in the end, to try for the family they both crave. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-82127-1
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in...
This is almost like a play for 18 voices, as Grimes (Stepping Out with Grandma Mac, not reviewed, etc.) moves her narration among a group of high school students in the Bronx.
The English teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wesley, his response to a month of reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Soon there’s an open-mike poetry reading, sponsored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then later, every week. The chapters in the students’ voices alternate with the poems read by that student, defiant, shy, terrified. All of them, black, Latino, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alienation endemic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appealing voices. Among them: Janelle, who is tired of being called fat; Leslie, who finds friendship in another who has lost her mom; Diondra, who hides her art from her father; Tyrone, who has faith in words and in his “moms”; Devon, whose love for books and jazz gets jeers. Beyond those capsules are rich and complex teens, and their tentative reaching out to each other increases as through the poems they also find more of themselves. Steve writes: “But hey! Joy / is not a crime, though / some people / make it seem so.”
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in the poetry. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2569-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
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