Although deemed “intellectually precocious” and placed ahead two grades, 13-year-old Parisian Lou Bertignac lacks the words and confidence to fit in with her older and more physically mature classmates, to cope with her depressed mother, who had a breakdown after losing Lou’s infant sister, and to connect with Lucas, a fellow loner who was held back two grades but isn’t afraid of life or authority. Then Lou meets homeless girl No. Using the excuse of research for a class presentation, Lou interviews No, and not only does she learn about the harsh conditions of homelessness but she finds her voice to tell her own story as well. Her thought-provoking and often poetic musings about No’s life (“Are we so small, so very small, that the world continues to turn, immensely large, and couldn’t care less where we sleep?”) challenge readers to rethink their responsibilities to humankind. In a realistic ending that is at once heartening and heartrending, Lou also discovers that saving No is harder than she ever imagined. Winner of France’s Prix des Libraires, this quiet yet gripping translation proves its merit. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59990-479-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
Categories: TEEN SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This story is necessary. This story is important.
11
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Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter is a black girl and an expert at navigating the two worlds she exists in: one at Garden Heights, her black neighborhood, and the other at Williamson Prep, her suburban, mostly white high school.
Walking the line between the two becomes immensely harder when Starr is present at the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend, Khalil, by a white police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Khalil’s death becomes national news, where he’s called a thug and possible drug dealer and gangbanger. His death becomes justified in the eyes of many, including one of Starr’s best friends at school. The police’s lackadaisical attitude sparks anger and then protests in the community, turning it into a war zone. Questions remain about what happened in the moments leading to Khalil’s death, and the only witness is Starr, who must now decide what to say or do, if anything. Thomas cuts to the heart of the matter for Starr and for so many like her, laying bare the systemic racism that undergirds her world, and she does so honestly and inescapably, balancing heartbreak and humor. With smooth but powerful prose delivered in Starr’s natural, emphatic voice, finely nuanced characters, and intricate and realistic relationship dynamics, this novel will have readers rooting for Starr and opening their hearts to her friends and family.
This story is necessary. This story is important. (Fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-249853-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Categories: TEEN FICTION | TEEN SOCIAL THEMES
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A must-read guide for all queer and questioning Christians (and their allies, too)!
Queer youth still face a multitude of challenges while growing up, and these have the potential to be amplified by religious beliefs. Addressing that issue head-on, this guide for Christians seeks to provide counsel, understanding, and gentle guidance across a series of 40-plus chapters that address everything from coming out in a variety of contexts, positive ways to deal with haters, and helping start the conversation about gender-neutral bathrooms at school, to living authentically. The book acknowledges that the advice is sometimes vague, but that’s because the spectrum of queer life is so broad. In this regard, the book excels by speaking to a range of genders and sexual identities; asexuals, nonbinary people, bisexuals, pansexuals, etc., are all addressed with respect and will find useful tips for navigating their early years. The book works better for hunt-and-peck readers as opposed to those reading from cover to cover because some of the information is repetitious, but that repetition may be necessary to counterbalance years of incorrect, inaccurate, or purposely hateful misinformation. The contributors to this fabulous read include mental health experts and religious leaders. Text boxes, pie charts, graphs, and grayscale illustrations support and enhance the main narrative.
A must-have book for libraries, schools, and churches. (note on language, glossary, additional resources, sources) (Self-help. 12-18)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Beaming Books
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Categories: TEEN SOCIAL THEMES | TEEN NONFICTION
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Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
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A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Categories: TEEN FAMILY | TEEN SOCIAL THEMES
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