A fast-paced, exciting survival tale for reluctant readers.
After their mother’s death from cancer, a teen girl and her older brother embark with their father on a new life.
The family has moved away from Vancouver, British Columbia, to start over on a farm. Jed, who has an unnamed intellectual disability, is thriving; he enjoys and is highly skilled at farmwork. But Poppy isn’t convinced. She dreams of traveling the world and teaching English and worries their fresh start might not have been entirely wise. But wildfires pose a more pressing concern. When their father volunteers to help fight a fire, Jed and Poppy are left on their own as the flames bear down on the farm. This simply told, breakneck story focuses on Poppy and Jed’s struggle to make their way to safety. While depth of characterization is sacrificed in favor of plot, the action is compelling. The siblings race against time to save their animals, face natural destruction and devastation, and are forced to rely on their trust in each other. The damage the fire wreaks on their community in an era of climate change is topical and dramatic but not overwrought in its presentation. Jed is competent and resourceful, able to hold his own on their journey and support Poppy. However, he’s framed entirely through narrator Poppy’s first-person perspective and often described via his struggles and symptoms. The characters are racially indeterminate.
A fast-paced, exciting survival tale for reluctant readers. (Adventure. 12-18)Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781459838222
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An adventurous and romantic addition to the genre.
Lim blends “Beauty and the Beast” with Chinese folklore in her wondrous new tale set in the same world as her Six Crimson Cranes series.
After Baba, her father, is lost at sea, Truyan Saigas turns to art forgery to support her mother and two sisters. But Tru’s efforts to make ends meet aren’t enough, and gangsters threaten to take away her sisters if their mother’s gambling debts aren’t paid. When the authorities come to arrest Tru for her crimes, she escapes—and then encounters Elang, a cursed half-dragon, half-human prince. He offers a deal she can’t refuse: If she marries him and helps him dethrone his tyrannical grandfather, the Dragon King, he’ll ensure that she and her family are safe and debt-free and help her get answers to her father’s disappearance. After they’re officially bound in a loveless marriage, Tru enters Ai’long, a magical underwater realm where she’s guarded by turtles, befriends merfolk, and, with the aid of a hot-tempered water demon, masters her gift of Sight (an ability to see glimpses of the future) through painting. The inevitable romance is enhanced by a beautifully rendered subaqueous backdrop and beguiling folkloric elements. In this fantasy Chinese world, Tru’s blue hair is evidence of her Balardan heritage on her father’s side, a trait regarded as “a damning sight”; but being visibly different motivates her to be independent and self-loving.
An adventurous and romantic addition to the genre. (map) (Fantasy. 12-18)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593650615
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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