Deftly weaving together historical anecdotes and simple line illustrations, Lin once again touches the heart of growing up...
Pacy and her family travel to Taiwan for one month to celebrate her grandmother’s 60th birthday, giving this Chinese-American girl another lens through which she can examine her identity.
When Pacy’s dad calls Taiwan an island of treasure, or bao dao, which sounds similar to the Chinese word for dumplings, she wonders—could Taiwan’s treasure be food? In a companion novel to The Year of the Dog (2006) and The Year of the Rat (2008), gentle Pacy is back, brimming with questions of identity and self-discovery. At home in New York, Pacy is one of the few Asians in her class. She tries hard to fit in. In Taiwan, she looks similar to everyone else, but she doesn’t speak Chinese or Taiwanese. So she doesn’t fit in there either. Pacy’s mom signs her up for a painting class, and Pacy is excited. She’s a good artist; surely she’ll make some friends. But painting with a bamboo brush on rice paper is difficult! The one talent that made her feel safe is suddenly gone; Pacy doesn’t know who she is anymore or where she belongs. Luckily, there is a lot of loving family to surround her, and a lot of incredible food to eat (especially dumplings). This third outing is as warmhearted as the first two.
Deftly weaving together historical anecdotes and simple line illustrations, Lin once again touches the heart of growing up in a multicultural family. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-12590-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The story shines in its conclusion, however, with vibrant themes of community, self-empowerment and artistic vision...
There are no surprises here, but it’s a heartwarming and uplifting story nonetheless.
Auggie (short for August, after her grandfather, Gus, who is raising her) thinks her neighbors and neighborhood are perfect. As she rides around with Gus in Old Glory, his trash-hauling truck, she excitedly anticipates her first day of fifth grade at a new school in a different part of town. But when she gets there, she realizes that her beloved neighborhood is actually the poor part of town, and worse, she feels ashamed. As she wrestles with her feelings, which are exacerbated by the defection of her best friend to the rich side, Gus and several neighbors receive notices from the town’s House Beautification Committee stating that their properties are in violation. Auggie determines to fight back and with Gus’ unstinting help, turns their house and yard into a folk-art extravaganza. Further clashes with the committee follow. Auggie’s present-tense, first-person narration, rife with similes, often comes off sounding more contrived than quirky, and the story’s numerous characters function more as formulaic devices rather than individual personalities. Additionally, the storyline concerning Auggie’s absent mother seems more tangential than imperative, and its revelatory windup comes as no surprise.
The story shines in its conclusion, however, with vibrant themes of community, self-empowerment and artistic vision delivered with a satisfying verve that forgives any predictability. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3725-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Still howling good fun, though the series’ big Reveal doesn’t seem any closer than before.
Resilient as ever, in the third installment of Wood’s deliciously melodramatic Victorian mystery teenage governess Penelope Lumley takes on threats to her wolfish young charges that include a hustler after the Ashton fortune.
The unexpected sighting of an ostrich among the larks and thrushes in the woods near Ashton Place heralds the arrival of bluff Admiral Albert Faucet (“That’s faw-say, my good man. Not faucet”). Once he meets the three feral children Penelope is charged with training up to be human, Faucet’s scheme to finance the introduction of ostrich racing to the British Isles by marrying the Dowager Lady Ashton is transformed to visions of wolf racing and sideshow exhibitions. Fortunately Penelope, proud graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, is not only up to that challenge but numerous others. These range from actually riding the aforementioned ostrich and meeting a pack of oversize, strangely intelligent wolves (if wolves they be) to orchestrating a climactic séance designed to contact the Dowager’s first husband, drowned (purportedly) in the medicinal tar pits at Gooden-Baden. Along with gleefully pitching her plucky protagonist into one crisis after another, punctuated by authorial disquisitions on similes, rhetorical questions, contagious punning and other linguistic follies, the author slips in a few more seemingly significant Clues to the Ashtons’ curious history and Penelope’s apparent involvement in it.
Still howling good fun, though the series’ big Reveal doesn’t seem any closer than before. (Melodrama. 10-12)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0061791185
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
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