Free of crises and melodrama, a buoyant take on the theme of embracing one’s family heritage.
Powwow drums call a modern teen to reconnect with his Native American roots.
Discontented with a move to Dallas, 15-year-old Mark persuades his father and stepmother to let him spend the summer with his Chumash grandmother on a California reservation. Following the lead of a newly met half brother who is a committed powwow dancer, Mark is irresistibly drawn both by the spectacular ceremony at events he attends and also a strong inner calling to become a dancer himself. A broad informational agenda runs through Robinson’s story, as his protagonist eagerly absorbs Chumash history and culture from those around him, along with details of the dancer’s ornate regalia as well as the purpose and spirit of powwows. Ultimately Mark stays with his multicultural extended family (he himself is, as he puts it, “four kinds of brown,” since his father is Filipino-Mexican and his birth mother was Chumash-Crow) to finish high school and to enter the huge Gathering of Nations Powwow in Albuquerque—“the Indianapolis 500 of the powwow world” and the book’s climax.
Free of crises and melodrama, a buoyant take on the theme of embracing one’s family heritage. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-939053-04-6
Page Count: 152
Publisher: 7th Generation
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
A bit of envelope-pushing freshens up the formula.
In honor of its 25th anniversary, a Disney Halloween horror/comedy film gets a sequel to go with its original novelization.
Three Salem witches hanged in 1693 for stealing a child’s life force are revived in 1993 when 16-year-old new kid Max completes a spell by lighting a magical candle (which has to be kindled by a virgin to work). Max and dazzling, popular classmate Allison have to keep said witches at bay until dawn to save all of the local children from a similar fate. Fast-forward to 2018: Poppy, daughter of Max and Allison, inadvertently works a spell that sends her parents and an aunt to hell in exchange for the gleeful witches. With help from her best friend, Travis, and classmate Isabella, on whom she has a major crush, Poppy has only hours to keep the weird sisters from working more evil. The witches, each daffier than the last, supply most of the comedy as well as plenty of menace but end up back in the infernal regions. There’s also a talking cat, a talking dog, a gaggle of costumed heroines, and an oblique reference to a certain beloved Halloween movie. Traditional Disney wholesomeness is spiced, not soured, by occasional innuendo and a big twist in the sequel. Poppy and her family are white, while Travis and Isabella are both African-American.
A bit of envelope-pushing freshens up the formula. (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-368-02003-9
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Freeform/Disney
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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