The tip-off that there will be mayhem occurs in the first paragraph of this awkward effort that pairs the theme of wolf behavior with a Columbine-style school massacre. When Akhil shows up in a suburban Washington high school, he causes a commotion. Apart from his accent, his refusal to sit in a chair, and his outbursts in class, Akhil’s neck and arms are heavily scarred. Adding to the intrigue, Akhil is in D.C. so that the NIH can study him, although he can’t reveal why. Soon, Akhil befriends two other outcasts in the school: Becky, who is fat, and her friend Omar, whose father, killed in the Gulf War, was black and his mother white. The three are united in their antipathy for Kyle Metzger, who crippled Becky’s little brother in a case of reckless driving, but whose lawyer father got him off scot-free. A new reason to loathe and fear Kyle emerges: he totes Aryan Nation hate literature around in his backpack, along with a hit list. Although the three briefly consider going to the police or the school authorities, they reject that option in favor of doing their own investigation. Akhil, who turns out to have been raised by wolves in India, has some ideas about applying the laws of the pack to the social universe of the high school. The plot is too much of a stretch to take seriously and the ending, though violent, is curiously unemotional. An author’s note offers information on wolves, examples of real “wolf children,” and Web sites about school violence. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-670-03619-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Askew is a compelling, almost shamanistic figure (not another Skellig, but close), and both in tone and locale this powerful...
Almond (Skellig, 1999) spins teenagers of very different backgrounds and experience into a whirl of ghosts and dreams, stories-within-stories, joy, heartache, and redemption.
In order to be able to care for his newly widowed grandfather, Kit has moved with his parents to the town of Stoneygate, perched in desolate decline on top of a maze of abandoned coal mines. He is soon drawn to follow wild, unstable, aptly named John Askew into a game called “Death” that leaves him sealed up in a tunnel; Kit emerges from the darkness with images of children and others killed in the mines flickering at the edge of his sight, and a strange, deep affinity for Askew. Inspired by Askew’s brutal family life, and gifted with a restless, brilliant imagination, Kit begins a prehistoric quest tale involving two lost children—a story that takes on a life of its own. Setting his tale in a town where the same family names appear on both mailboxes and tombstones, and where dark places are as common as sad memories, Almond creates a physical landscape that embodies the emotional one through which his characters also move, adding an enriching symbolic layer by giving acts and utterances the flavor of ritual.
Askew is a compelling, almost shamanistic figure (not another Skellig, but close), and both in tone and locale this powerful story is reminiscent of Alan Garner’s Stone Book quartet. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: March 7, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32665-3
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A legend in her own mind, former New Yorker Mary Elizabeth (“My true name is Lola”) Cep sweeps into her new suburban New Jersey high school and runs smack into a stone wall named Carla Santini: class queen, beautiful, clever, and vicious. In a series of sharp skirmishes, both teenagers display generous quantities of grit and ego, and though Lola beats out Carla for the lead in the school play, she also, thanks to a positive penchant for embellishing the truth, maneuvers herself into a reckless nighttime junket into Manhattan with her mousy friend, Ella. Hours later, the two find their wildest dreams coming true as they accompany a popular, very drunk rock star to a hot post-concert party. Sheldon (Boy Of My Dreams, 1997) gives her fast-talking protagonist a winning supporting cast (led by Ella, who turns out to be unexpectedly levelheaded and loyal in the crunch), a worthy rival and triumphs that are not easily won; readers will cheer the high spots, groan at the low, and applaud Lola in general for her grandly disarming style. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7636-0822-X
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
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