A strong emotional arc grounds this uneven survival story exploring environmental and human rights.
A grief-stricken boy finds a renewed sense of family and purpose on a secret expedition into the rainforest.
Jack has been on a downward spiral since the death of his beloved father. Depression muffles his emotions, and he feels drawn to risky endeavors with a crew of troublemakers. Mum suddenly announces they’re going away for two weeks over the Christmas holidays, but what Jack assumes is a vacation turns out to be a life-changing expedition for her work. Written in the first person, this story is anchored by Jack’s vivid emotions. Grief, anger, and hurt are deftly drawn as his emotional world expands and his passion for environmental and human rights grows. While Jack’s strong voice carries the story despite shallow supporting character development, even he can’t really explain why he was given no training before being thrust into the dangers of the rainforest. The covert expedition in the third act is the most compelling part of the story, although the transition from cautionary tale about an apathetic, wounded boy to survival story is a bit abrupt. Cultural markers and Portuguese words point to a Brazilian locale. There’s an odd juxtaposition of specific details about the lives of the region’s Indigenous people with a lack of specificity about their name and lands; in fact, specific geographic names are omitted throughout the book. Jack has a Portuguese-speaking grandmother; his race and nationality are ambiguous.
A strong emotional arc grounds this uneven survival story exploring environmental and human rights. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781782693840
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Pushkin Children’s Books
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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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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