This powerfully vivid story has the immediacy of Napoli’s always-immaculate prose, coupled with a basis in family lore and urban history that make it irresistible. Nine-year-old Beniamino loves his mama, his family, his city of Napoli and all of its scents and sights. His mother puts him on a cargo ship to America without her, for reasons that he may not ever figure out, arming him with the parables of his Jewish and Napoletano heritage and a new pair of shoes. Renamed Dom Napoli at Ellis Island, he tells his first-person tale of survival, exploration and learning on the streets of lower Manhattan at the end of the 19th century. Careful and smart, Dom allies himself with a pair of boys, one under control of a vicious padrone, buying huge sandwiches and then reselling them, cut in parts, on Wall Street from a borrowed cart. From his first days sleeping in a barrel to teaching his widowed landlady to make his favorite foods, Dom’s voice and presence make his life as real and as tangible as possible. History come to vibrant life for middle-grade readers and almost anyone whose ancestors came from foreign lands. (Historical fiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2005
ISBN: 0-385-74653-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005
A young man who unwittingly helps a punk steal an elderly couple’s television in the first story sets the somewhat uneasy tone for this collection. While glimpses of Soto’s characteristic humor and charm appear in later stories, many of these tales focus on less-than-comfortable events and experiences. There’s a girl whose tattooed and pierced babysitter dyes her younger brother’s hair orange and green, a fact sure to enrage their mom when she eventually finds out; a child who is achingly aware of the enmity of anti-war protesters and simultaneously proud of her immigrant parents’ efforts to improve their lives; and a sad young boy whose painfully polite parents have frozen him out of the family without apparently meaning to do so. Each situation is distinct, clearly drawn and immediate. Soto presents his characters with sometimes insurmountable challenges, but he limns their lives with such vivid descriptions and insights that readers will be left wondering how things work out—and wishing for the best. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-206181-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read.
Will a bully always be a bully?
That’s the question eighth-grade football captain Chase Ambrose has to answer for himself after a fall from his roof leaves him with no memory of who and what he was. When he returns to Hiawassee Middle School, everything and everyone is new. The football players can hardly wait for him to come back to lead the team. Two, Bear Bratsky and Aaron Hakimian, seem to be special friends, but he’s not sure what they share. Other classmates seem fearful; he doesn’t know why. Temporarily barred from football because of his concussion, he finds a new home in the video club and, over time, develops a new reputation. He shoots videos with former bullying target Brendan Espinoza and even with Shoshanna Weber, who’d hated him passionately for persecuting her twin brother, Joel. Chase voluntarily continues visiting the nursing home where he’d been ordered to do community service before his fall, making a special friend of a decorated Korean War veteran. As his memories slowly return and he begins to piece together his former life, he’s appalled. His crimes were worse than bullying. Will he become that kind of person again? Set in the present day and told in the alternating voices of Chase and several classmates, this finding-your-middle-school-identity story explores provocative territory. Aside from naming conventions, the book subscribes to the white default.
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-05377-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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