Eerie and effective.
A “found” Russian manuscript recounts a late-19th-century haunting.
Prince Lev Lvov is apprehensive about leaving his beloved mother when he is summoned to St. Petersburg to take up his aristocratic responsibilities in the impossibly cavernous Falcon House. Upon arriving, the dreamy, artistic 12-year-old meets his termagant aunt and an odd assemblage of servants, all of whom remark on Lev’s resemblance to his dead grandfather—in whose creepy study his aunt insists he sleep. Lev is unsettled to discover his hand possessed when he sits down to draw to comfort himself. Those drawings, smudged and torn, provide eerie accompaniment to the text. The mysterious young Vanyousha offers Lev companionship but provokes more questions. Adding a further layer of weirdness, Yelchin positions the story in a “translator’s note” as a document he found as a child. The story is both simple—a ghost story—and as complex as the country it rises from, offering glimpses of Russia’s unique and brutal history in its examination of the institution of serfdom, just recently abolished in Lev’s time, and its exploration of the role of art as a vehicle for liberation. Middle graders unfamiliar with that history will be intrigued by the ghost story and the compelling setting, and explanatory notes both provide context and help to prepare them for such books as Candace Fleming’s The Family Romanov (2014) and M.T. Anderson’s Symphony for the City of the Dead (2015) later on.
Eerie and effective. (Historical fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9845-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Like Blume, Hiranandani resists simplistic, tidy solutions. Each excels in charting the fluctuating discomfort zones of...
Four decades separate Sonia Nadhamuni and Judy Blume’s Margaret Simon, but these feisty, funny offspring of Jewish interfaith marriages are sisters under the skin.
Perched on the uncertain cusp of adulthood, each grapples with perplexing cultural identity issues, but in very different worlds. While Margaret’s grandparents pressure her to label herself as they wish, it’s Sonia’s peers who expect her to define herself racially and culturally. Having a nominally Hindu, Indian-immigrant dad and Jewish-American mom wasn’t a big deal until her father lost his job. Now Sonia must leave her comfortably small private school behind and—with Dad sinking into clinical depression and Mom taking on more work—chart her own course at Maplewood Middle School. Where does she fit? With the cheerleaders like pretty, blonde Kate or the bussed-in, city kids like Alisha, who’s writing a novel? Sonia’s the only cheerleader not invited to Peter Hanson’s birthday party. Is racism the cause? As in real life, her challenges don’t come neatly compartmentalized; Sonia will have to work out her mixed-heritage identity while contending with stressed-out parents, financial woes and vexing social uncertainties. Multifaceted characters, especially Sonia—astute, observant and original—provide depth.
Like Blume, Hiranandani resists simplistic, tidy solutions. Each excels in charting the fluctuating discomfort zones of adolescent identity with affectionate humor. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-385-74128-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch.
Basketball-playing twins find challenges to their relationship on and off the court as they cope with changes in their lives.
Josh Bell and his twin, Jordan, aka JB, are stars of their school basketball team. They are also successful students, since their educator mother will stand for nothing else. As the two middle schoolers move to a successful season, readers can see their differences despite the sibling connection. After all, Josh has dreadlocks and is quiet on court, and JB is bald and a trash talker. Their love of the sport comes from their father, who had also excelled in the game, though his championship was achieved overseas. Now, however, he does not have a job and seems to have health problems the parents do not fully divulge to the boys. The twins experience their first major rift when JB is attracted to a new girl in their school, and Josh finds himself without his brother. This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. Most interesting is the family dynamic that informs so much of the narrative, which always reveals, never tells. While Josh relates the story, readers get a full picture of major and minor players. The basketball action provides energy and rhythm for a moving story.
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch. (Verse fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-10771-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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