Baz is an excellent thief. She has been since the beginning, when Demi found her as a tiny child and she came to live with him in Fay’s den of child crooks in an (perhaps frustratingly) unspecified urban slum. No one is as good at picking pockets as the innocent-looking team of Baz and Demi, and they’re content to be Fay’s favorite children. When Demi steals a glittering ring from an uptown lady, they fall into a lengthy chain of betrayal and corruption. Spies within their own gang are the least of their problems; the ring belonged to the chief of police’s wife, and both the police and the mob are after them. Trusting anyone is dangerous, but Baz doesn’t want to end up like Fay and Demi, who trust no one. Lavish details of the hellish environment, from mud flats that drown the unwary to the festering garbage mountain on which enslaved children pick trash for the mob, derail the adventure’s forward momentum, slowing it to a crawl. What ought to be a thrilling chase drags, despite the charming, streetwise heroine. (Fiction. 12-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-56330-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Chelsea Green
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2010
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Billed as the conclusion to the saga that began with The Face on the Milk Carton (1990), this soapy drama ends with some wounds healed, but the characters and plot lines suspended in thin Rocky Mountain air. Raised by a Connecticut couple who believed themselves to be her grandparents, but were actually the mother and father of Hannah, her kidnapper, Janie has rejoined and subsequently relinquished her birth family to live with those who raised her. Now, as her “father” lies in intensive care, Janie discovers that he not only knows where Hannah is, but has been sending her money regularly from a special account. Hannah lives in Boulder, Colorado, where Janie’s older brother, Stephen, is going to school and falling hard for domineering Kathleen; Janie flies out for a visit, determined to confront Hannah, and get answers about her past. The characters have sharp intelligence and strong, complex feelings, but, despite staccato prose and frequent shifts in point-of-view, the plot lags, stretched out to give everyone a chance to wrestle with private demons. In what passes for a climax Stephen and Kathleen move apart, Janie and formerly disgraced boyfriend Reeve narrow the rift between them, and Janie decides to “unkidnap” herself by mailing Hannah the balance of the special account, without making direct contact. Readers may appreciate her wisdom, but as Hannah remains a faceless, voiceless enigma, there is no closure to the central mystery of the four- book drama. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32611-4
Page Count: 189
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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