It is 1948 in Birmingham, Ala., and lively Gussie, age 12, explains that her comeuppance for humming during her deaf-minister father’s church services is the start of what turns out to be one of the worst and best times of her life. Her kind parents interpret this funny first misdemeanor to be a sign that she needs more from the hearing world. Not so, but as she maneuvers in the new, unfamiliar semi-snotty church, her confidence diminishes and she can’t stop acting like a clod. Tension builds as her risks at the new church and her high jinks at home come closer to discovery, until her punishment becomes a summer job at the school for the deaf. Ray’s powerful control here creates realistically sympathetic characters, whose anxieties and disappointments are palpable. Once in the deaf school, their world, the teaching philosophy of the time includes segregation of black students. Here, Gussie uses all of her talents, her kindness, humor and playfulness; she learns about others and thinks of them first. Two provisos to Ray’s superb work: Deaf-culture advocates may object to a finale of deaf students signing songs for the amusement of hearing people, and some readers will be annoyed that every loose end is tied up in the happiest of ways. Inspired by Ray’s mother’s own experience. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: May 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-65762-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2006
A luscious, shivery delight.
After losing almost everything in the Great Depression, Ellie’s family moves to the Maine woods on Echo Mountain to start a farm—then tragedy strikes.
Not long after getting them established in their new life, Ellie’s father is struck on the head by a falling tree and lapses into a monthslong coma, his recovery unlikely. Never feeling threatened by the wilderness the way her mother and older sister, Esther, do, Ellie takes over many of her beloved father’s chores, finding comfort and confidence in the forest. She’s fully mindful of her place in the natural world and her impact on the plants and animals she shares it with. After she becomes determined to use the resources of the woods, however novel and imaginative the application, to save her father, conflict with her mother and Esther increases sharply. Led by a dog, Ellie discovers elderly Cate—called “hag” and shunned as a witch—badly injured, living alone in a cabin on the mountaintop. Cate fully understands the 12-year-old’s slightly supernatural sense. Cate’s grandson, Larkin, Ellie’s age, flits in and out of the tale before finally claiming his place in this magnificently related story of the wide arc of responsibility, acceptance, and, ultimately, connectedness. Carefully paced and told in lyrical prose, characters—all default White—are given plenty of time and room to develop against a well-realized, timeless setting.
A luscious, shivery delight. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-55556-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Twelve-year-old Derek—a notoriously reluctant reader of everything but Calvin and Hobbes—would rather set the grass on fire with his sister’s old sunlamp than tackle his summer reading list. More than that, though, he wants to figure out why his mom’s acting so weird about the ten-year-old article he found from a Martha’s Vineyard newspaper entitled “LOCAL GIRL FOUND DEAD ON BEACH.” That mystery threads throughout this engaging middle-grade novel, told in a dryly hilarious first-person voice. Words like “impulse” and “discipline” are illustrated Pictionary-style by the author’s teenage son, mirroring Derek’s vocabulary-building technique: “My parents insist I use this system all the time, so I usually pretend I’m a spy being tortured by Super Evildoers who force me to practice ‘active reading’ or be killed by a foreign assassin.” When he’s not making avocado grenades, the smart-alecky Derek reveals himself as an endearing softy who loves his friends, family and dog and is even capable, in time, of befriending—horrors!—the class goody-goody. A kinder, gentler Wimpy Kid with all the fun and more plot. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: July 6, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8903-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
