A carefully constructed remembrance that offers poignancy without sacrificing sincerity.
An elegiac reflection on growing up, deferring dreams, and understanding loss.
“You have to embellish when you tell a story,” Sheedy’s father advises him at the start of this debut memoir. The author’s story begins with vivid anecdotes about coming-of-age in a large, Catholic family in 1950s and ’60s Connecticut. The author had four siblings, but his relationship with his big sister, Peggy is the central one—it’s a tender, symbiotic connection and the lens through which he views his own history. Sheedy offers tightly focused vignettes, and their economy gives them punch and pace even without an overall narrative arc apart from chronology. Burnished memories of buzzing summers spent in swimming holes and strawberry patches set a sentimental tone, contrasted with the anguish of too-soon deaths and strokes of truly bad luck. But the author’s embellishments seem minimal in these stories, as his focus is more on instruction. For example, a deadly flood in 1955—massive enough to unseat the neighbor’s house from its foundation—offers a case study in the value of charity rather than a dramatic set piece. The tale of a father who could never quite get ahead in life isn’t presented as a tragedy but as a quiet example of a kind, flawed man doing his best. In the world of Sheedy’s memory, there’s no large-scale injustice: hardship occurs by chance, and redemption comes with honest striving toward goodness. When the author reaches college, his ambitions come into focus, but, like his father, he rarely gets the breaks he needs. He places gentle blame on himself, telling of how he remained satisfied with entry-level jobs and how he was apt to let romantic entanglements subvert career opportunities. But he also maintains a mature, sanguine perspective throughout this memoir, suggesting that he wouldn’t have had it any other way. At the end, the premature illness and decline of his sister Peggy, as they both approach middle-age, compels him to prepare for his greatest loss: “The stories of our lives are loosely plotted,” he writes her in a letter. “What if I could choose my endings?”
A carefully constructed remembrance that offers poignancy without sacrificing sincerity.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-935991-88-5
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Signalman Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.
A fifth-grade New Orleans girl discovers a mysterious chrysalis containing an unexpected creature in this middle-grade novel.
Jacquelyn Marie Johnson, called Jackie, is a 10-year-old African-American girl, the second oldest and the only girl of six siblings. She’s responsible, smart, and enjoys being in charge; she likes “paper dolls and long division and imagining things she had never seen.” Normally, Jackie has no trouble obeying her strict but loving parents. But when her potted snapdragon acquires a peculiar egg or maybe a chrysalis (she dubs it a chrysalegg), Jackie’s strong desire to protect it runs up against her mother’s rule against plants in the house. Jackie doesn’t exactly mean to lie, but she tells her mother she needs to keep the snapdragon in her room for a science project and gets permission. Jackie draws the chrysalegg daily, waiting for something to happen as it gets larger. When the amazing creature inside breaks free, Jackie is more determined than ever to protect it, but this leads her further into secrets and lies. The results when her parents find out are painful, and resolving the problem will take courage, honesty, and trust. Dumas (Jaden Toussaint, the Greatest: Episode 5, 2017, etc.) presents a very likable character in Jackie. At 10, she’s young enough to enjoy playing with paper dolls but has a maturity that even older kids can lack. She’s resourceful, as when she wants to measure a red spot on the chrysalegg; lacking calipers, she fashions one from her hairpin. Jackie’s inward struggle about what to obey—her dearest wishes or the parents she loves—is one many readers will understand. The book complicates this question by making Jackie’s parents, especially her mother, strict (as one might expect to keep order in a large family) but undeniably loving and protective as well—it’s not just a question of outwitting clueless adults. Jackie’s feelings about the creature (tender and responsible but also more than a little obsessive) are similarly shaded rather than black-and-white. The ending suggests that an intriguing sequel is to come.
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943169-32-0
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Plum Street Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.
In the ninth book in the Bluford young-adult series, a young Latino man walks away from violence—but at great personal cost.
In a large Southern California city, 16-year-old Martin Luna hangs out on the fringes of gang life. He’s disaffected, fatherless and increasingly drawn into the orbit of the older, rougher Frankie. When a stray bullet kills Martin’s adored 8-year-old brother, Huero, Martin seems to be heading into a life of crime. But Martin’s mother, determined not to lose another son, moves him to another neighborhood—the fictional town of Bluford, where he attends the racially diverse Bluford High. At his new school, the still-grieving Martin quickly makes enemies and gets into trouble. But he also makes friends with a kind English teacher and catches the eye of Vicky, a smart, pretty and outgoing Bluford student. Martin’s first-person narration supplies much of the book’s power. His dialogue is plain, but realistic and believable, and the authors wisely avoid the temptation to lard his speech with dated and potentially embarrassing slang. The author draws a vivid and affecting picture of Martin’s pain and confusion, bringing a tight-lipped teenager to life. In fact, Martin’s character is so well drawn that when he realizes the truth about his friend Frankie, readers won’t feel as if they are watching an after-school special, but as though they are observing the natural progression of Martin’s personal growth. This short novel appears to be aimed at urban teens who don’t often see their neighborhoods portrayed in young-adult fiction, but its sophisticated characters and affecting story will likely have much wider appeal.
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 978-1591940173
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Townsend Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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