In the opening pages of this sequel to Hidden Talents (1999), 15-year-old Eddie Thalmayer, aka Trash, awakens in a locked room, groggy from being overmedicated. Bowdler, a sadistic adult who seemingly works for the government, wants to harness Eddie’s ability to mentally move objects and create the perfect weapon. Readers learn that Trash is one of the special power teens from Hidden Talents’s Edgeview Alternative School (Torchie, Cheater, Flinch, Lucky and Martin round out the group). Their powers are definitely cool, but they are demonstrated only occasionally during this work, which reads quite long and requires familiarity with the first title. Escaping from the lab, Trash sends out a telepathic message for his buddies to rendezvous in Philadelphia. Bowdler, like crazed school administrator Ed Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, hunts them down. Middle-school readers might enjoy how the teens turn the tables on a deranged adult, but overall, the humor is forced and the danger is not as immediate as Scott Westerfeld’s Midnighters series, which also features teens with psychic talents and packs a greater punch. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-765-30977-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Starscape/Tom Doherty
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
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It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
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Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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