Suspenseful and gripping, if lacking in texture: a fable of hope in harrowing conditions.
An economically privileged girl unexpectedly experiences urban homelessness.
Lola and Amit, her brother, live a comfortable life with their widowed father. They have a servant, go to good schools, and want for nothing. But in quick succession, their housekeeper has a baby and quits working for them, the school break begins, and their father fails to return from work one day during the height of monsoon season. As days turn to weeks without any word from Dad, the children begin to fear the worst. They are ultimately evicted from their home and must adapt to street life. Their possessions are stolen, they do odd jobs, and they rest in dark corners and rusted-out train cars. Matters are made worse when Lola and Amit are separated by crowds during a festival. Lola links up with more seasoned street kids, who divulge the particulars of their circumstances with her. A terse boy named Rafi shares his shelter and supplies and helps her hold on to hope. This story succeeds as a page-turning survival adventure and as an indictment of global capitalism’s brutality. However, with a tidy conclusion and a setting devoid of distinct cultural markers, it holds the real challenges of millions struggling in urban poverty throughout the world at arm’s length. Contextual clues suggest that the story might be set in South Asia.
Suspenseful and gripping, if lacking in texture: a fable of hope in harrowing conditions. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781782692553
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Pushkin Children’s Books
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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