Sixth-grader Amedeo Kaplan (son of now-divorced Jake Kaplan and Loretta Bevilaqua, and godson of Peter Vanderwaal, from Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, 2004) becomes intrigued with his neighbor Mrs. Zender, a flamboyant recluse. Once a second-tier opera diva, she can no longer afford “people” and, incapable of refilling her own champagne glass, must move to a senior residence. Enter Mrs. Wilcox, “liquidator” of estates, and her son William. The two boys help every afternoon, sorting and tagging items, until Amedeo finds a drawing signed “Modigliani,” and they unravel a mystery that amazingly involves both the Vanderwaals and the Wexlers—the story of the Nazi confiscation of “Degenerate art,” of postwar blackmail and of a heroic gesture. Amedeo’s own revelations (about what people are made of and how to see it) are so intricately delivered that the very patient young readers who have made it to the end of the story may find they have to grow into it. But there’s plenty to grow into. Quirky, wandering, sometimes unbelievable, it nevertheless takes firm root in the reader’s mind, training their eye to watch for stories that need discovering. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4169-4972-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A courageous teen’s moral dilemma—and how he comes to terms with it—underscores this well-written, sometimes gripping story. A young child, for whom 15-year-old Brady Parks once baby-sat, dies after his family’s kayak sinks during an outing. Brady’s valiant attempts to revive little Ben actually get him to breathe for a few minutes. Sadly, the tiny boy succumbs and Brady’s plagued with guilt and grief. His sorrow is nothing, though, compared with the shock of discovering that the tragedy was the result of a malicious prank by his two best friends. Even worse is Brady’s discovery that he himself unwittingly gave them the idea. This sickening fact, reluctance to rat on his pals, and the thought that he, too, could be criminally charged in the death keep Brady silent. In the end, though, Brady knows what he must do. The bland title and cover might keep kids away from this strong effort. Too bad: it deserves an audience. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-525-47317-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2004
An engaging novel-in-poems that imagines one earnest, impassioned teenage girl’s experience of the Japanese-American...
Crystal-clear prose poems paint a heart-rending picture of 13-year-old Mina Masako Tagawa’s journey from Seattle to a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II.
This vividly wrought story of displacement, told from Mina’s first-person perspective, begins as it did for so many Japanese-Americans: with the bombs dropping on Pearl Harbor. The backlash of her Seattle community is instantaneous (“Jap, Jap, Jap, the word bounces / around the walls of the hall”), and Mina chronicles its effects on her family with a heavy heart. “I am an American, I scream / in my head, but my mouth is stuffed / with rocks; my body is a stone, like the statue / of a little Buddha Grandpa prays to.” When Roosevelt decrees that West Coast Japanese-Americans are to be imprisoned in inland camps, the Tagawas board up their house, leaving the cat, Grandpa’s roses and Mina’s best friend behind. Following the Tagawas from Washington’s Puyallup Assembly Center to Idaho’s Minidoka Relocation Center (near the titular town of Eden), the narrative continues in poems and letters. In them, injustices such as endless camp lines sit alongside even larger ones, such as the government’s asking interned young men, including Mina’s brother, to fight for America.
An engaging novel-in-poems that imagines one earnest, impassioned teenage girl’s experience of the Japanese-American internment. (historical note) (Verse/historical fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1739-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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