Seikei, a young samurai, isn’t thrilled to return to Osaka, the home of his merchant-class birth family that he has chosen to forget. However, Seikei has no choice but to accompany his adoptive father, the wise Judge Ooka, a familiar character from other Hoobler samurai mysteries, who is Osaka-bound on business for the shogun. Once in town, Seikei returns to his family’s teashop and is reunited with his brother and sister. To celebrate, the siblings attend a traditional Japanese puppet theatre, where Seikei quickly gets tangled in a murder mystery, which he must solve to protect his family and prove himself to Judge Ooka. As Seikei unpacks the mystery, the city’s negative attitude toward samurai challenges him to reexamine his choices and to define himself beyond his title. Seikei eventually solves the gruesome theatre murders, but only after several unsuspected twists and turns featuring colorful glimpses into 18th-century Japan. A brief concluding authors’ note provides factual background for the mystery. Unpredictable and culturally rich. (Historical fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-399-24609-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Sleuth/Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
The bird’s-eye view into this pivotal moment provides a powerful story, one that adults will applaud—but between the...
The ugly brutality of the Jim Crow South is recounted in dulcet, poetic tones, creating a harsh and fascinating blend.
Fact and fiction pair in the story of Rose Lee Carter, 13, as she copes with life in a racially divided world. It splits wide open when a 14-year-old boy from Chicago named Emmett Till goes missing. Jackson superbly blends the history into her narrative. The suffocating heat, oppression, and despair African-Americans experienced in 1955 Mississippi resonate. And the author effectively creates a protagonist with plenty of suffering all her own. Practically abandoned by her mother, Rose Lee is reviled in her own home for the darkness of her brown skin. The author ably captures the fear and dread of each day and excels when she shows the peril of blacks trying to assert their right to vote in the South, likely a foreign concept to today’s kids. Where the book fails, however, is in its overuse of descriptors and dialect and the near-sociopathic zeal of Rose Lee's grandmother Ma Pearl and her lighter-skinned cousin Queen. Ma Pearl is an emotionally remote tyrant who seems to derive glee from crushing Rose Lee's spirits. And Queen is so glib and self-centered she's almost a cartoon.
The bird’s-eye view into this pivotal moment provides a powerful story, one that adults will applaud—but between the avalanche of old-South homilies and Rose Lee’s relentlessly hopeless struggle, it may be a hard sell for younger readers. (Historical fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-544-78510-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Resembling a Golden Age comic without the pictures, this tale pits a group of small-town children with superpowers—call them “preteen titans”—against a shadowy menace that robs them of those powers on their 13th birthdays. Coming to town with his family to care for his dying grandma, Daniel quickly spots his neighbor Mollie and her friends performing incredible feats. Soon he’s in their confidence, as they demonstrate combinations of super-speed, super-strength, enhanced senses and the ability to turn invisible. All of them can also hear the clock ticking, however. Gifted not with superpowers but a sharp mind and a fondness for Sherlock Holmes stories, Daniel sets out to discover how and why his new friends, like generations of their predecessors, are being robbed of their abilities. Where those abilities come from never enters in, but the obligatory wily supervillain does, leading to a titanic climactic battle. Cody wears his influences on his sleeve, but has some fun with them (one lad’s “power” is a super-stench) and crafts a tribute that, unlike M.T. Anderson’s Whales On Stilts (2005), is more admiring than silly. (Fantasy. 10-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85595-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2009
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