A debut that serves as a powerful instructive for writing from and reading the intersections—125th Street–size intersections...
Multicultural Harlem lives again in this daringly diverse tale of growing up against the odds and the imaginative, healing possibilities that we can create through the choices we make.
Moore turns his back on the newly whitewashed Harlem, taking readers to the St. Nick projects to meet brown-skinned West Indian (Trini, to be exact) Wallace “Lolly” Rachpaul, full of contradiction and agency. Moore surrounds Lolly with a grand ensemble of characters that echo the ample cross sections and cultural milieus of the big city. There’s Lolly’s mother, who has embraced her queer sexuality with toy-store security guard Yvonne, who becomes a secondary caregiver after the tragic loss of Lolly’s older brother, Jermaine to the drug-hustling crew underworld of Harlem. Lolly hopes that he and his dark-skinned Dominican best friend, Vega, can resist its allure. Mr. Ali is the veteran social worker with marginal resources and a big heart, refashioning his little basement space to unravel the traumas and difficult choices that could lead astray the black and brown youth he serves. And don’t forget Big Rose (who doesn’t like to be called Big). Then there are Lolly’s Legos, which, block by block, help him imagine a healthy future. These characters are vibrantly alive, reconstituting the realness that is needed to bring diverse, complicated stories to the forefront of our shelves.
A debut that serves as a powerful instructive for writing from and reading the intersections—125th Street–size intersections for all readers to enjoy. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5247-0124-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
An extraordinary journey that speaks to the “before” and “after” of life-changing events.
A magical typewriter brings healing, reconnection, and new friends to a hurting family.
Olivetti, a silent but fully conscious typewriter, has been there since the beginning, living with parents Felix and Beatrice and their children, Ezra, Adalyn, Ernest, and Arlo, a “copper-colored family with eyes as rich as ink.” Olivetti, who even took part in Felix’s proposal to Beatrice, watched playfulness and creativity grow as the children arrived, and he faithfully remembers every single word the people have typed. Then, longing to communicate, he watched the family suffer through Everything That Happened. Which is exactly what seventh grader Ernest is still trying to forget. Constantly carrying his dictionary around, Ernest spends most of his time on the roof away from others, scared of getting close to people for fear of losing them. So, when Beatrice suddenly leaves after taking Olivetti to a pawn shop, grief-stricken Ernest seeks him out and confesses that he fears he’s to blame for her departure. Desperate to help, Olivetti takes the unusual action of breaking typewriterly code: He communicates with Ernest in order to help him. But will it be enough? The chapters are told from Olivetti’s and Ernest’s first-person perspectives and frequently contain flashbacks. Debut author Millington skillfully delivers a complex storyline that deals with heavy topics. With plenty of quotable wisdom, richly textured language, and dry humor, this work reads like a classic.
An extraordinary journey that speaks to the “before” and “after” of life-changing events. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9781250326935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing introduction to the paradoxes and possibilities of time travel.
Two misfit 12-year-olds find friendship via a wormhole.
It’s 2023, and Mason is having a rough time at school and at home, so his parents send him to a therapist. She suggests that he write a letter about his problems to “anybody or nobody.” Although Mason decides to write to Albert Einstein, a quirk of spacetime causes the letter he’s hidden in his closet to instead find its way to a girl named Talia, who’s living in western Pennsylvania in 1987. It takes a while for both kids to believe they’re not the victims of some elaborate prank, but they become close friends and confidants through typical tweenage struggles—separated parents, sibling friction, bullying, and antisemitism from peers. (Talia refers to herself as “half-Jewish,” and while white-presenting Mason isn’t Jewish, as a New Yorker he has Jewish friends and classmates.) Both children in this epistolary novel put an unrealistic amount of detail into their letters, and at many points their voices sound awkwardly adult, especially when they’re discussing Talia’s experience of anti-Jewish bigotry. Readers will quickly become invested in Mason’s and Talia’s lives, however, and the mystery of how, and why, they’re connected is satisfying enough to keep the story moving forward. Readers aware of recent controversies surrounding Alice Walker may be surprised to see her cited positively in a book that addresses the scourge of antisemitism.
An absorbing introduction to the paradoxes and possibilities of time travel. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781338734218
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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