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
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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