One assumes that this story was pitched at an acquisitions meeting as “Harry Potter meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Luka, an orphan, has been raised by the indigent monk Atami as the Chosen One, the Holy Boy destined to free China from the Mogo occupation. Instead of a scar on his forehead, he bears five moles on each foot, and, like his Western counterpart, he must undergo severe trials and learn an arcane art in order to realize his destiny. A series of misadventures (including a short stay on death row), which separates him from Atami, leads to Luka’s discovery of a new mentor, Yin Gong grandmaster Gulan, and his formal apprenticeship at the Xi-Ling temple. Chen’s (China’s Son, 2001) first foray into fiction represents a headlong dash through an alternate China in which magic lurks just below the surface. Luka is an appealing character whose determination and facility with the martial arts are balanced by humor and a healthy dose of pre-adolescent competitiveness. He collects around him a coterie of friends, from a pair of street ruffians to a trio of students who instruct him in temple etiquette and help him in his feud with Yi-Shen, the resentful boy he displaces as junior master. The language is colloquial, even earthy, and helps to maintain the work’s sense of fun; this is light years away from the ponderous, stilted martial-arts saga of the popular Western imagination. The breathless pace helps to conceal some looseness in the plotting, including a real fuzziness about the time elapsed during Luka’s adventures, but with secret tunnels and magical beasts galore, who cares? While the story and characters cannot be accused of blazing originality, this offering nevertheless presents an agreeable and unusual twist on a tried-and-true formula—a solid addition to the “While you’re waiting for . . . ” display. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-73020-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
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
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
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