A fascinating, page-turning tale.
After the death of the village witch, her pelesit, a cricketlike trickster ghost-familiar, must seek a new master who shares the witch’s bloodline.
Suraya, a lonely, impoverished child who is shunned by the local children and held at an emotional distance by her mother, embraces her pelesit inheritance, lovingly naming him Pink. Pink serves as Suraya’s friend and protector, but his retribution against those he believes have slighted Suraya is impulsive and malicious. Disturbed, Suraya extracts a promise from Pink not to hurt others, ever, unless she is in absolute danger. Pink soon breaks his promise when Suraya is bullied by other girls, but when she finally makes her first human friend, Jing Wei, Pink’s protectiveness takes a dangerously jealous turn. As Suraya struggles with the decision to cut Pink loose, darker forces remind them that Pink is not the only malevolent being around. The author’s middle-grade debut immerses readers in Malaysian culture and food as well as weaving in both Islamic elements and pre-Islamic views of ghosts and death. Though aspects of the novel embrace the disturbing and grotesque (which will delight many readers), its conclusion is grippingly heart-wrenching and speaks to deeper themes of family, trauma, and friendship. Suraya and her family are Malay Muslims while Jing Wei is Chinese Malaysian.
A fascinating, page-turning tale. (Supernatural adventure. 9-14)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-294095-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read.
Will a bully always be a bully?
That’s the question eighth-grade football captain Chase Ambrose has to answer for himself after a fall from his roof leaves him with no memory of who and what he was. When he returns to Hiawassee Middle School, everything and everyone is new. The football players can hardly wait for him to come back to lead the team. Two, Bear Bratsky and Aaron Hakimian, seem to be special friends, but he’s not sure what they share. Other classmates seem fearful; he doesn’t know why. Temporarily barred from football because of his concussion, he finds a new home in the video club and, over time, develops a new reputation. He shoots videos with former bullying target Brendan Espinoza and even with Shoshanna Weber, who’d hated him passionately for persecuting her twin brother, Joel. Chase voluntarily continues visiting the nursing home where he’d been ordered to do community service before his fall, making a special friend of a decorated Korean War veteran. As his memories slowly return and he begins to piece together his former life, he’s appalled. His crimes were worse than bullying. Will he become that kind of person again? Set in the present day and told in the alternating voices of Chase and several classmates, this finding-your-middle-school-identity story explores provocative territory. Aside from naming conventions, the book subscribes to the white default.
Korman’s trademark humor makes this an appealing read. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-05377-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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