A satisfying adaptation for teens who want their thrills clean.
The bestselling page-turner, adapted for young readers.
Harvard religious symbology professor Robert Langdon is in Paris for a speaking engagement when he is summoned to the Louvre after-hours. The museum’s curator has been brutally murdered, and mysterious circumstances make Langdon a suspect in the eyes of the police and a clue in the eyes of the curator’s estranged granddaughter, cryptologist Sophie Neveu. Sophie and Robert escape the French police and follow clues left behind that lead through history and secret societies and to a stunning secret that threatens to destroy the Catholic Church and change the world forever. The thriller that was ubiquitous in the early 2000s has been out of the spotlight just long enough to feel fresh to this adaptation’s intended audience, but there isn’t much difference between this book and the original. The sexy bits have been cut out, which is odd. It would seem the publisher feels that America’s young people can’t handle an orgy, but it can handle a destabilization of belief systems that have governed human relations for a couple thousand years. At least there’s no attempt to “young up” Robert and Sophie and cast them as teenage prodigies. Regardless, Brown’s tale remains engrossing, prompting quick turns of the page and readings in one sitting. The exposition can be clunky at times, and the tertiary characters are expendable, but the big reveal is a blast, a pulpy solution that perfectly dovetails with the Indiana Jones–meets–Sherlock Holmes vibe the novel is constantly striving for. Bring on Angels and Demons.
A satisfying adaptation for teens who want their thrills clean. (Thriller. 12-16)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1582-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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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