Liza thinks everyone else has a better life than she does; her younger sister Holly is perfect, her best friend Chloe has perfect parents and no siblings, and her sort-of boyfriend Forrest has always known what he wanted to be (a podiatrist). Liza, on the other hand, is jealous of her sister, has parents who don't seem to care much about her, and has caught her father philandering. When she writes a sterling essay on Hester Prynne's shame, her teacher refuses to believe that she wrote it and insists that it be done over. Liza worships her teacher, and doesn't have the courage to stand up to her. Suburban adolescent angst can be pretty tiresome, but Stevens' punchy prose enlivens the proceedings. No doubt many teenagers will see themselves in Liza, who has a long list of things she hates, spends a lot of her time feeling sorry for herself and worrying what others think of her, and is afraid she has no personality. The side of herself she shows to the world is fairly bland, but the inner life she exhibits in this first-person narration is anything but. A tragedy near the end feels gratuitously tacked on, but the rest of this likable teen's story is realistic. An interesting, if flawed debut novel with pungent writing that keeps it moving. (Fiction. 10+)*justify no*
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-13542-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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BOOK REVIEW
A child finds that being alone in a tiny tropical paradise has its ups and downs in this appealingly offbeat tale from the Australian author of Peeling the Onion (1999). Though her mother is long dead and her scientist father Jack has just sailed off on a quick expedition to gather plankton, Nim is anything but lonely on her small island home. Not only does she have constant companions in Selkie, a sea lion, and a marine iguana named Fred, but Chica, a green turtle, has just arrived for an annual egg-laying—and, through the solar-powered laptop, she has even made a new e-mail friend in famed adventure novelist Alex Rover. Then a string of mishaps darkens Nim’s sunny skies: her father loses rudder and dish antenna in a storm; a tourist ship that was involved in her mother’s death appears off the island’s reefs; and, running down a volcanic slope, Nim takes a nasty spill that leaves her feverish, with an infected knee. Though she lives halfway around the world and is in reality a decidedly unadventurous urbanite, Alex, short for “Alexandra,” sets off to the rescue, arriving in the midst of another storm that requires Nim and companions to rescue her. Once Jack brings his battered boat limping home, the stage is set for sunny days again. Plenty of comic, freely-sketched line drawings help to keep the tone light, and Nim, with her unusual associates and just-right mix of self-reliance and vulnerability, makes a character young readers won’t soon tire of. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-81123-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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Percy Jackson takes a break from adventuring to serve up the Greek gods like flapjacks at a church breakfast.
Percy is on form as he debriefs readers concerning Chaos, Gaea, Ouranos and Pontus, Dionysus, Ariadne and Persephone, all in his dude’s patter: “He’d forgotten how beautiful Gaea could be when she wasn’t all yelling up in his face.” Here they are, all 12 Olympians, plus many various offspring and associates: the gold standard of dysfunctional families, whom Percy plays like a lute, sometimes lyrically, sometimes with a more sardonic air. Percy’s gift, which is no great secret, is to breathe new life into the gods. Closest attention is paid to the Olympians, but Riordan has a sure touch when it comes to fitting much into a small space—as does Rocco’s artwork, which smokes and writhes on the page as if hit by lightning—so readers will also meet Makaria, “goddess of blessed peaceful deaths,” and the Theban Teiresias, who accidentally sees Athena bathing. She blinds him but also gives him the ability to understand the language of birds. The atmosphere crackles and then dissolves, again and again: “He could even send the Furies after living people if they committed a truly horrific crime—like killing a family member, desecrating a temple, or singing Journey songs on karaoke night.”
The inevitable go-to for Percy’s legions of fans who want the stories behind his stories. (Mythology. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-8364-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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