Humorous and cleverly constructed, this deserves a “hoof five.” (Fiction. 10-14)
A seventh-grader’s play chronicles the rise and demise of a kidnapping plot and the contradictory motives of the conspirators.
In three acts, with scenes that leap back and forth in time, Olive Henry describes a conspiracy to kidnap Edmund Farley Middle School's live mascot, a capybara. The original goal, for Olive and her flamboyant best friend, Reynaldo Delgado, was to earn a reward for the mascot’s return: equal treatment for all students in their sports-happy school. But, as Olive explains to new student Devin Bevins, they were joined and betrayed by Pablo Fuentes, secretly a baseball player wanna-be, and animal rights activist Gabrielle “Brie” Greenberg. Perl makes humor out of middle school traditions and even out of Brie’s animal rights organization (the Pony and Capybara Dignity League), but she’s also making important points about the treatment of both animals and middle school students. The narrative begins as Olive describes the recent events to Dev but quickly flashes back to depict the events, concluding with a scene that will leave readers wondering just how real her “play” might be. As a novel presented as a script, this also includes extensive staging notes as well as a wide-ranging bibliography. The author dedicates the book to Lin-Manuel Miranda and, though the only specific ethnic diversity indicated is Latino, explicitly encourages "inclusive" casting—for the human roles, anyway.
Humorous and cleverly constructed, this deserves a “hoof five.” (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-55171-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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