Raven Jefferson is 16 and lives with her mother in a housing project in Brooklyn. She was a high school senior, until the birth of her son Smokey derailed most of her plans. Raven is at home, guilty and depressed about being a teenage mom and a drain on her mother’s resources—Gwen Jefferson supports Raven and Smokey on the income from her job as a postal clerk. Initial tension is provided by the relationship between Raven and her older sister, Dell, who became a paralegal and moved into her own apartment. On her visits home, she prods Raven to better herself and go back to school. Raven has a really tight friendship with Aisha, who lives in the same project and is also a teenage mother. Aisha advises Raven, baby-sits for her, and makes her laugh when she is downhearted. As the story evolves, Raven takes control of her life—first by getting a part-time job, then striving to win a spelling contest that can lead to a college scholarship. Halfway through, Smokey’s father, Jesse, reappears. He struggles to have his middle class African-American parents accept Raven and Smokey into their lives. There are some great depictions of character here; especially fine is the portrayal of the friendship between Raven and big, loving, feisty Aisha. The dialogue captures the pace and speech patterns of urban African-Americans, adding humor and descriptive power to the characterizations. Startlingly funny scenes add lightness to a work that, because of the subject matter, could have been very depressing. Although the ending is a little unbelievable and pat, on the whole it’s satisfyingly hopeful. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-37140-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2001
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
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