bookshelf

COUNTING STARS

Name: COUNTING STARS
Author: David Almond
ISBN: 0-385-72946-4

by David Almond ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2002

bookshelf

In 18 short stories, none previously published here, the author of Heaven Eyes (2001) surveys a child’s world in which love and pain intertwine. The tales are partly autobiographical—or, as he puts it: “They merge memory and dream, the real and the imagined, truth and lies.” After discovering “The Middle of the World” within the circle of his loving family, the young narrator steps out to encounter both abused children (“Loosa Fine”), and damaged elders like Miss Golightly, whose whole history is encompassed by a fetus in a jar and old photos of a uniformed beau. He enjoys concurrent flings with a beautiful visitor and faddish mysticism; travels in a carnival “Time Machine,” discovers supposedly imaginary “Jonadab” on a map, and reports visions of his buried sister among flocks of angels. Almond writes with haunting spareness of these experiences, and also of his father’s death, and his mother’s increasing infirmity—leaving readers to figure out for themselves why people laugh or weep at certain moments, to think about the complex connections between the living and the dead, and to wrestle with troubling questions of morality or religious faith. Some of his experiences are shocking, some uplifting, obliquely amusing, even magical; this is not light or easy reading, but few who tackle it will come away unmoved. (Short stories. YA)

Pub Date: April 9, 2002

ISBN: 0-385-72946-4

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
KEVIN AND THE BLACKBIRDS
by David Almond ; illustrated by P.J. Lynch

- BOOK REVIEW
PUPPET
by David Almond ; illustrated by Lizzy Stewart

- BOOK REVIEW
A WAY TO THE STARS
by David Almond ; illustrated by Gill Smith

bookshelf

FUDGE-A-MANIA

by Judy Blume ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1990

bookshelf

A well-loved author brings together, on a Maine vacation, characters from two of her books. Peter's parents have assured him that though Sheila ("The Great") Tubman and her family will be nearby, they'll have their own house; but instead, they find a shared arrangement in which the two families become thoroughly intertwined—which suits everyone but the curmudgeonly Peter. Irrepressible little brother Fudge, now five, is planning to marry Sheila, who agrees to babysit with Peter's toddler sister; there's a romance between the grandparents in the two families; and the wholesome good fun, including a neighborhood baseball game featuring an aging celebrity player, seems more important than Sheila and Peter's halfhearted vendetta. The story's a bit tame (no controversies here), but often amusingly true to life and with enough comic episodes to satisfy fans.