This foray into the dark side of Manhattan prep schools emphasizes details of setting over plot or character development. Nick, a shallow, self-absorbed, wealthy teenager, assiduously notes brand names of cigarettes, liquor, and clothing, and relates conversations full of obscenities and slang such as “Wazzup, boyz?” and “Chillz. Nick’s good peoples.” The teens here trash homes at drunken parties, shoplift at corner stores, play nasty practical jokes, use various illegal drugs, and have meaningless sex. Nick dwells on his romantic interest in Kris, an aspiring writer who inexplicably doesn’t notice his love, and reminiscences about his unconvincing past as a graffiti artist. When Kris’s younger brother, a precocious freshman alcoholic who quotes T.S. Eliot, is threatened by a vicious prep school gang, Nick tries to intervene despite the threat of violence. While the characters are hard to like and the slang gets tedious, the author’s credentials as a former prep school student suggest he is reflecting a real, disturbing subculture that may well interest teen readers in and out of that world. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-414-47135-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
Pitamic bites off more than she can chew with this instructional art volume, but its core projects will excite in the right context. Twelve pieces of fine art inspire two art projects apiece. Matisse’s The Snail opens the Color section; after history and analysis, there’s one project arranging multicolored tissue-paper squares and one project adding hue to white paint to create stripes of value gradation. These creative endeavors exploring value, shade, texture and various media will exhilarate young artists—but only with at best semi-successful results, as they require an adult dedicated to both advance material procurement and doing the artwork along with the child. Otherwise, complex instructions plus a frequent requirement to draw or trace realistically will cause frustration. Much of the text is above children’s heads, errors of terminology and reproduction detract and the links between the famous pieces and the projects are imprecise. However, an involved adult and an enterprising child aged seven to ten will find many of the projects fabulously challenging and rewarding. Art In Action 2 (ISBN: 978-0-7641-441-7) publishes simultaneously. (artist biographies, glossary, location of originals) (Nonfiction. Adults)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7641-4440-0
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
American citizens have been held hostage in the Middle East at least since 1979, when our embassy in Teheran was seized by a mob; Lawson's history of the US government's response in the 80's makes a sad tale of hypocrisy, incompetence, and corruption. He shows how, after the hostage crisis cost Carter his political career, Reagan allowed a series of profitable arms-for-hostages deals to go through—while publicly condemning the idea—to finance his ``pet anti-communist project.'' The ensuing revelations, investigations, and trials are covered here in some detail. In an epilogue, Lawson notes that a new group of hostages were taken when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990. A thematic introduction by Arthur L. Liman, an attorney involved in the Senate Iran-contra investigation, sums it up: Reagan's advisors, acting from ``disrespect, bordering on contempt'' for the Constitution, established a ``secret government within the Government'' for specifically illegal purposes. B&w photos; adequate bibliography; long chronology; excellent notes; chart listing hostages taken in the 80's; index. (Nonfiction. YA)
Pub Date: April 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-531-11009-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991
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