A sweet sequel.
Amina develops her musical talents and her identity in this follow-up to Khan’s popular middle-grade novel Amina’s Voice (2018).
A monthlong family trip to Pakistan wraps up as summer ends. Although the trip was dotted with moments when she didn’t feel Pakistani enough, as Amina returns home to Wisconsin it’s as though she’s leaving a piece of her heart behind. Seventh grade brings new activities and a new friend, Nico. While she settles back into routines with community service, time with friends, and FaceTime with family back in Pakistan, Amina works on writing song lyrics to capture her feelings about being attached to two places, and Nico teaches her to mix music on the computer. Is the excitement she feels around him about the music and having a new friend, or is it something more? And how can she keep her promise to her uncle to show Americans the beauty of Pakistan when her project about Malala Yousafzai only makes her classmates pity girls in Pakistan? Readers will enjoy being along for the ride as Amina sorts through mild middle school turbulence and finds satisfying ways to express and share her true self. A diverse cast of characters (Nico is French and Egyptian; Soojin is Korean; Emily is, presumably, White) situates Amina in a realistic small American town, and her story offers a hopeful example for young readers who are figuring themselves out, too.
A sweet sequel. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5988-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Salaam Reads/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Moving and poetic.
A motherless boy is forced to abandon his domesticated fox when his father decides to join soldiers in an approaching war.
Twelve-year-old Peter found his loyal companion, Pax, as an orphaned kit while still grieving his own mother’s death. Peter’s difficult and often harsh father said he could keep the fox “for now” but five years later insists the boy leave Pax by the road when he takes Peter to his grandfather’s house, hundreds of miles away. Peter’s journey back to Pax and Pax’s steadfastness in waiting for Peter’s return result in a tale of survival, intrinsic connection, and redemption. The battles between warring humans in the unnamed conflict remain remote, but the oncoming wave of deaths is seen through Pax’s eyes as woodland creatures are blown up by mines. While Pax learns to negotiate the complications of surviving in the wild and relating to other foxes, Peter breaks his foot and must learn to trust a seemingly eccentric woman named Vola who battles her own ghosts of war. Alternating chapters from the perspectives of boy and fox are perfectly paced and complementary. Only Peter, Pax, Vola, and three of Pax’s fox companions are named, conferring a spare, fablelike quality. Every moment in the graceful, fluid narrative is believable. Klassen’s cover art has a sense of contained, powerful stillness. (Interior illustrations not seen.)
Moving and poetic. (Animal fantasy. 9-13)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-237701-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
A slow, slight story enlivened by likable characters and a nice dose of humor. Twice.
Six 14-year-old boys, all classmates, must sit tight in their school bathroom while they wait out a storm warning, a forced interaction that causes the barriers between them to fall.
Although there isn’t much story, it’s told twice, once as a novella, the second time as a play. The plot is a kind of stripped-down, reasonably witty, all-male middle school version of The Breakfast Club, though it lacks that property’s heart and gravitas. Readers will both like and recognize the diverse group of characters, such as the brainiac or the hostile, seemingly dumb one, and the jokes mostly land. But for boys of that age, these characters are remarkably live-and-let-live, with no harsh teasing of the anxious new kid with the stuffed cat, for example. This goodwill creates minor rather than major tension between them, which, coupled with the lack of action, makes the novella feel rather sluggish. It’s better as a play, partially because it’s cut to its essentials, partially because the story’s shape, simple set, and group of individuals artificially stuck together as interior revelations play out lends itself to the form. Drama teachers may find it a useful demonstration of how to turn prose into dramatic writing.
A slow, slight story enlivened by likable characters and a nice dose of humor. Twice. (Fiction/drama. 9-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5223-6
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
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