Lacy Mullins, 13, is a talented swimmer whose brother has AIDS. Although Jack hasn't lived at home since he left for college when Lacy was five, the siblings are close. Whenever he came to visit, he brought her something special, and they corresponded faithfully. Lacy knew Jack was gay and accepted it. But now Jack wants to move back home to spend his last months with his family. His lover, Lincoln, has already died from AIDS, and Jack is sick and lonely. Lacy is glad to have Jack at home, but his sickness is painful for him and his family. Lacy must also, at her parents' request, keep Jack's illness a secret, and that proves too much for her to handle. When she finally tells people, however, they are not all supportive. Even Lacy's best friend, Emma, must overcome her initial fear of AIDS before she and Lacy can continue their close friendship. And Lacy finds that, for the first time in her life, she can't swim. She drops from the team as Jack's condition worsens. When he dies, she lets his tortured body go but feels that he is still with her. She returns to swimming with a new resolve: Now she is swimming for Jack, too. Although oddly distanced at times, newcomer Davis's story is sensitive and informative. Jack is never fully developed as a character, but Lacy will speak to readers who have experience with AIDS patients, fears about the virus, or just want straight answers. (Fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-689-31922-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
The poem/novel ends with only a trace of hope; there are no pat endings, but a glimpse of beauty wrought from brutal reality.
Billie Jo tells of her life in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl: Her mother dies after a gruesome accident caused by her father's leaving a bucket of kerosene near the stove; Billie Jo is partially responsible—fully responsible in the eyes of the community—and sustains injuries that seem to bring to a halt her dreams of playing the piano.
Finding a way through her grief is not made easier by her taciturn father, who went on a drinking binge while Billie Joe's mother, not yet dead, begged for water. Told in free-verse poetry of dated entries that span the winter of 1934 to the winter of 1935, this is an unremittingly bleak portrait of one corner of Depression-era life. In Billie Jo, the only character who comes to life, Hesse (The Music of Dolphins, 1996, etc.) presents a hale and determined heroine who confronts unrelenting misery and begins to transcend it.
The poem/novel ends with only a trace of hope; there are no pat endings, but a glimpse of beauty wrought from brutal reality. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 978-0-590-36080-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
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