After graduating from high school, sisters Keeba and Teesha Washington decide to turn their talent for hair-braiding into a business and open a beauty shop. Although eager for success, the newly minted African-American entrepreneurs of TeeKee’s Tresses are inexperienced and have to cope with a myriad of obstacles, including a dearth of customers, an unexpected rent increase, and malicious vandalism. Set in Hillbrook Houses, a down-at-the-heels housing project in Brooklyn, McDonald once again shows off her extraordinary ear for teenage street slang and ability to write convincing dialogue. Nonetheless, this rather modest Horatio Alger inspirational lacks focus and urgency. The piece has more characters than it can handle and the reader never becomes deeply involved in the girls’ struggle. It’s a shame, because McDonald’s message to kids—find a talent, then work hard to achieve a goal—is one that can’t be stated too often. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-374-39955-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
When Ben’s father went to Willamette View, where Ben is starting as a freshman, he was a killer quarterback. Ben, also a talented football player, has always been proud to be a chip off the old block, until the day his father announces he is gay and moves in with his lover. Deeply ashamed, Ben does his best to keep his father’s new life a secret, especially from his tough- talking, hyper-masculine fellow athletes. As Ben struggles to act cool and be one of the guys, he learns that no one is immune from social pressure and that most of his contemporaries posture and pretend. The characters, while sympathetic and understandable, aren’t emotionally involving, and the ending—Ben gets emergency help from his father’s lover and realizes that he still cares for his father—is too pat. Bechard (My Mom Married the Principal, 1998, etc.) is particularly good with dialogue; her characters’ off-center, awkward conversations reveal a lot, while sounding clumsily authentic. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88547-9
Page Count: 186
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
In a departure from his realistic novels, Thomas (Satellite Down, 1998, etc.) tries a science fiction adventure intended for younger readers, with less success. Grady, 13, is a junior-high geek and botanist who is invited to join a secret forest regeneration project in the Amazon. The project is directed by the mysterious Dr. Carter, who turns out to be, not surprisingly, a standard mad scientist. When Grady arrives at the site he is scorned because his colleagues were unaware of his youth; assigned to drudge work and left alone at the campsite, Grady surreptitiously analyzes the data the team has collected, and realizes that Dr. Carter is growing poisonous trees that are destroying the food chain. When his efforts are discovered by Dr. Carter, Grady escapes from the camp and joins the local Indians. The book shifts into an action adventure tale, as Grady fights hostile tribes and attempts to foil Dr. Carter. While the scenario is imaginative and Thomas doesn’t completely abandon his fortÇ, characterization, at the core this novel is a kids-know-best shoot-’em-up. When Grady blossoms into an Amazonian superhero, the author’s fans may feel the threat of incredibility, but they’ll also have to turn every page to the end. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81780-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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