This engaging mix will have great appeal to middle school readers in search of adventure; the geopolitical education is a...
Human rights abuses in China get all too personal for a couple of American high school students in this appealing thriller.
Tenth-graders Ethan and Ti-Anna gradually become closer friends and partner investigators when Ti-Anna’s father disappears. Known for his activism on behalf of Chinese dissidents, he loses contact with his family on a trip to Hong Kong. Ethan and Ti-Anna engineer a trip to Asia to investigate, which ultimately puts the initially retiring Ti-Anna into peril. It is a dangerous journey, full of mysterious threats, that requires them each to trust and support the other. It’s not a romance at all, though there are some overtones of that: Front and center is the conundrum of how they will track someone who doesn’t want to be tracked, in a strange city and with the government as their opponent. There’s a nice vibe to the friendship between the two, which is supported by the assurance that all is ultimately well; Ethan states at the beginning that the account he narrates is being written for a judge. Hiatt neatly folds in information and background on 20th-century Chinese history and current events. Few mysteries combine cultural diversity, politics and physical danger with a lighthearted friendship.
This engaging mix will have great appeal to middle school readers in search of adventure; the geopolitical education is a nice bonus. (Thriller. 11-16)Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-385-74273-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Horror with heart. (Horror. 12-15)
This spine-tingler plunges into the stuff of nightmares.
“The body was lying in a thicket,” it begins. Fourteen-year-old Maya doesn’t remember why she ran off the path in this dark forest. Two dead bodies lie on the ground, each turning its head with eyes aglow. A shadowy figure bends over a third body. Maya stumbles and screams. Her family finds her and guides her out of this terrifying forest, but when they reach their new home/business—a village hotel called the Rowan Tree—something chilling occurs: A police officer sent to investigate is the same person as the first dead body. Not a twin, not a doppelganger—the same person. Maya just knows. Fright and grisliness escalate. Someone unknown and unseen stalks Maya; a fox has an unnatural power to make her follow it; foxes are turning up disemboweled and decapitated—and not just foxes. The narration stays faithful to Maya’s third-person-limited perspective, so readers don’t know who’s good or bad any earlier than she does. Maya’s warm parents and dedicated older brother can’t shield her or the village from danger, and they become targets too. There’s nothing particularly unique or specific about Maya and her family, which works well here, as if this could happen to anyone. When clarity and answers come, they’re sad, satisfying and less supernatural than they first seemed.
Horror with heart. (Horror. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2397-2
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
As a highly specific thesaurus it excels; as a story, not so much. Alan Cumyn covers much the same ground with considerably...
The story of a boy and his boners.
"Weinerschnitzel." "Wang." "Sky-high pork pipe." "Baloney pony." Those are just some of the names 13-year-old Bobby calls his errant penis (within the first three pages), which becomes erect at the most inconvenient times. After accidently shocking his math teacher into early retirement when she gets a gander at his tent pole, Bobby is sentenced to several hours of school therapy with a counselor who needs couch time herself. In addition, he must deal with his clueless parents, randy grandfather, angry sister and moronic best friend, Finkelstein. His life is further complicated by the fact that he has a crush on the new math teacher’s daughter and doesn’t know how to ask her to the Big Dance. Will Bobby’s wayward pecker continue to obstruct his path to true love? To say this lacks the subtlety and character development of Judy Blume’s classic male-puberty title, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t (1971), is putting it lightly. Stereotypical characterizations combined with a plot that reads like a rejected Family Guy script assure that the novel will find an enthusiastic audience with middle-school boys who share Sitomer’s dubious sense of humor, if with no one else. However, the excessive penis and fart jokes may tire even them.
As a highly specific thesaurus it excels; as a story, not so much. Alan Cumyn covers much the same ground with considerably more nuance, though for slightly older readers, in Tilt (2011). (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25498-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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