Unhoused kids deserve a better exploration of their challenges and successes.
A mix of anecdotes, news excerpts, statistics, and descriptions of social programs comprises this investigation into homelessness.
Sections of this brief overview cover such topics as “Homelessness Among the LGBTQ Community,” “Hunger, Abuse, and Mental Illness,” and “Homeless and in College.” Stock photos of attractive, ethnically diverse teens suffering attractively keep the material visually interesting. A few examples present the ubiquity of homelessness among even the somewhat famous: a former presidential candidate’s husband, an American Idol contestant, a running back for the Oakland Raiders. The seriousness of the dangers is often weirdly elided. “The Failures of Foster Care” mentions foster parents who are “stern and demanding” and only vaguely hints at possible traumas encountered in that setting. Teens who come out, readers learn, may become homeless if “their news is met with disapproval,” a passive way of framing the rejection of young queer people by their families. Only human traffickers are presented as particularly scary. Given this relatively danger-free recitation of risks, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the work concludes that fixing homelessness will, in addition to support from the government and community organizations, “take a change in attitude by many people who are homeless” who “need to stop thinking of their situations as hopeless and to adopt the attitudes of” formerly homeless individuals who have achieved success, a message that reads like victim blaming.
Unhoused kids deserve a better exploration of their challenges and successes. (source notes, organizations and websites, further research, index, picture credits) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-67820-170-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: ReferencePoint Press
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For a guide to fashion, there's not much flair here. But there's plenty of valuable info for budding fashionistas and...
A matter-of-fact tone removes the mystery from style in this work that is one-part fashion manual and one-part career guide.
Flaherty begins by explaining what a stylist is and the tools he or she uses. She moves on to a wide range of different looks like Socialite, Tomboy and Hipster; fashion elements like color and prints; and a thorough understanding of body type. While the number of fashion personalities is impressive, not one is male, a confusing omission given that boys wear clothes, too. The section on body types is very useful with its real-world examples, Naomi Campbell representing the Inverted Triangle type. The second half is more practical, focusing on "curating" a closet, building a wardrobe, styling oneself and others, and styling as a career. Sprinkled throughout the text are activities like a fashion-movie night and organizing a clothing swap. The illustrations are attractive, yet it's too bad there isn't a greater variety of body types represented.
For a guide to fashion, there's not much flair here. But there's plenty of valuable info for budding fashionistas and stylists, going beyond the shallow glitz of fashion magazines and blogs. (index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9827322-4-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Zest Books
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2012
Considerably more edgy satire than Happily Ever After here; a bracing take for teens.
From Puss in Boots’ swaggering descendant “Puss-in-Trainers” to the titular break-and-enter artist caught on security cameras, Agard lays urban-inflected modern twists on 29 folkloric characters.
Written in rhyme or free verse with hip-hop cadences, the poems are nearly all in first person and range in tone from funny or acid (“Bring on your shining armour, dude. / I’ll be your damsel in distress with attitude”), to dark, even threatening. Many offer fresh approaches to the familiar, such as quick portraits of Cinderella in biker leathers and Iron Jack as an emotionally vulnerable Gulf War vet. An apple and a magic mirror provide unusual points of view about their assigned roles, as do “Two Ugly Sisters” who defiantly declare that they “won’t be face-down in no make-up kit / We give the thumbs-up to hair in the armpit,” but end with a sobering “Never mind the eye, we enchant the ear / From our ugly mouths come song, come prayer.” The poems are printed in a variety of typefaces, and Kitamura’s heavily inked black-and-white cartoons or silhouettes likewise change looks while adding appropriately dark, angular, energetic visual notes.
Considerably more edgy satire than Happily Ever After here; a bracing take for teens. (Poetry. 12-16)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84780-183-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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