Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones.
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The other settlers think Ty's parents are crazy for their willingness to do business with "surfs"—the unwanted surfeit...
Ty, the underwater settler from Dark Life (2010), has to rescue his harvest, his parents and a slew of ragged surfs in this breakneck adventure.
The other settlers think Ty's parents are crazy for their willingness to do business with "surfs"—the unwanted surfeit population who sail the oceans in floating townships and are notorious for raids, crime and untrustworthy behavior. Were the cynics right? Drift township kidnaps Ty's parents and steals their crop of seaweed. While Ty searches for his parents, he finds signs that something bigger than the kidnapping of his parents is afoot: An entire township has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, its population left to die. Ty and his erstwhile girlfriend Gemma also learn a lot more about the politics of the settlements than they ever expected. Alas, despite Ty's frequent brushes with moral complexity—perhaps the laws protecting the settlement help make things so bad for the surfs they have few ethical choices; perhaps sometimes he needs to look "at the consequences down the line" for society instead of at his own immediate need—the ultimate resolution is all too simple.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-17843-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
In the spirit of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic (1988), with a mix of historical details about the women's-suffrage...
Travels in time give a middle-class girl the courage to fight for both women's suffrage and her own dreams.
Sixteen-year-old Miriam, lover of typography, wants nothing more than to train at her father's print shop. But respectable, well-to-do girls don't work with heavy machinery in 1912 Portland, Ore. Miriam's immigrant Jewish parents, proud of the future they've built from poverty, intend an advantageous marriage for their only living child. If befriending a lovely pair of poor young suffragists isn't enough to make Miriam rebel, what is? Perhaps time travel is what she needs. Miriam is visited by her biblical relative, Serakh, who begs Miriam to travel back in time to help her ancestors. The daughters of Zelophehad seek a favor from Moses, and Miriam is needed to provide them with courage. Miriam pops back and forth between worlds: well-to-do Portland, where she makes morning calls and attends fancy-dress parties; biblical Moab; and the equally exotic, alien environment of suffragist marches and working-class neighborhoods. It takes all three to help her find the initiative, empathy and common sense to help push her toward adulthood.
In the spirit of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic (1988), with a mix of historical details about the women's-suffrage movement and early printing, tied together with a very Jewish thread of historical continuity . (Historical fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-932010-41-1
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Ooligan Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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