by Jamila Gavin ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 4, 2009
The author of Coram Boy (2001) again tells several affecting tales at once—but here they’re all weighed down by a baroque literary artifice and a gooey, simplistic ending. Cocooned in total luxury thanks to her genial, fabulously wealthy father, 12-year-old Antonietta is impelled to take her first hesitant steps toward independence by the sudden disappearance of her beloved tutor Miss Kovachev and the appearance of Benny, a guard’s son, who flits about playing minor pranks when he’s not hacking the household computer systems. Miss Kovachev leaves behind a journal which, though written in Bulgarian, evidently begins translating itself in Nettie’s dreams to present a harrowing account of a clandestine trade in Eastern European girls smuggled into England as short-lived sweatshop labor. It’s all true, as Nettie discovers later on, and—gasp—her father is involved. When the police finally arrive her father makes a clean escape, her trophy mom retires to another estate and Nettie, joyously reunited with Miss Kovachev, goes off to try for a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School. It’s a muddle, with good parts but no center. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-374-36333-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2009
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by David Baldacci ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 26, 2019
Awful on a number of levels—but tidily over at last.
The rebellion against an evil archmage and his bowler-topped minions wends its way to a climax.
Dispatching five baddies on the first two pages alone, wand-waving villain-exterminator Vega Jane gathers a motley army of fellow magicals, ghosts, and muggles—sorry, “Wugmorts”—for a final assault on Necro and his natty Maladons. As Necro repeatedly proves to be both smarter and more powerful than Vega Jane, things generally go badly for the rebels, who end up losing their hidden refuge, many of their best fighters, and even the final battle. Baldacci is plainly up on his ancient Greek theatrical conventions, however; just as all hope is lost, a divinity literally descends from the ceiling to referee a winner-take-all duel, and thanks to an earlier ritual that (she and readers learn) gives her a do-over if she’s killed (a second deus ex machina!), Vega Jane comes away with a win…not to mention an engagement ring to go with the magic one that makes her invisible and a new dog, just like the one that died heroically. Measuring up to the plot’s low bar, the narrative too reads like low-grade fanfic, being laden with references to past events, characters who only supposedly died, and such lines as “a spurt of blood shot out from my forehead,” “they started falling at a rapid number,” and “[h]is statement struck me on a number of levels.”
Awful on a number of levels—but tidily over at last. (glossary) (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-26393-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
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by Jacqueline Woodson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998
Miah’s melodramatic death overshadows a tale as rich in social and personal insight as any of Woodson’s previous books.
In a meditative interracial love story with a wrenching climactic twist, Woodson (The House You Pass on the Way, 1997, etc.) offers an appealing pair of teenagers and plenty of intellectual grist, before ending her story with a senseless act of violence.
Jeremiah and Elisha bond from the moment they collide in the hall of their Manhattan prep school: He’s the only child of celebrity parents; she’s the youngest by ten years in a large family. Not only sharply sensitive to the reactions of those around them, Ellie and Miah also discover depths and complexities in their own intense feelings that connect clearly to their experiences, their social environment, and their own characters. In quiet conversations and encounters, Woodson perceptively explores varieties of love, trust, and friendship, as she develops well-articulated histories for both families. Suddenly Miah, forgetting his father’s warning never to be seen running in a white neighborhood, exuberantly dashes into a park and is shot down by police. The parting thought that, willy-nilly, time moves on will be a colder comfort for stunned readers than it evidently is for Ellie.
Miah’s melodramatic death overshadows a tale as rich in social and personal insight as any of Woodson’s previous books. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-23112-9
Page Count: 181
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998
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