A miss.
Think that having “god friends” would be supercool? Think that the key to success is skill with hairdos or marrying a cute sun god?
Ixchel, a self-described “gorgeous Mayan goddess,” lives with her grandfather in the Upperworld but yearns to marry the jealous K’inich Ajaw. The two run off in secret, but Ixchel is killed by a lightning bolt and spends time in the Mayan underworld, Xibalba, before being rescued by her husband. The book concludes with several pages of nonfiction material about the ancient Mayans, a chart that parses myth from fact from fiction, and a bibliography. Despite these and the disclaimer that mythology is meant to be reinvented, this comes across as a transparent attempt to appeal to girls who can only relate to superficial, silly stories and who might not otherwise take their learning seriously. The thin, first-person story is silly and reads like cartoon dialogue. It’s hard to know who the intended audience might be for this peculiar mixture of ancient and contemporary culture, as in contrast to such new standards as the Percy Jackson books, this comes across as disrespectful of both the actual mythology and modern girls. Ixchel’s nonfiction-ish wrap-up of modern Central America sums it up: “If there was a magazine of ‘pop’ goddesses in Mesoamerica, I’m sure I would be on the cover.”
A miss. (cast of characters, glossary, photographs) (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-937463-96-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Goosebottom Books
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
An inspirational exploration of caring among parent, teacher and child—one of Grimes’ best. (Poetry. 8-12)
In this delightfully spare narrative in verse, Coretta Scott King Award–winning Grimes examines a marriage’s end from the perspective of a child.
Set mostly in the wake of her father’s departure, only-child Gabby reveals with moving clarity in these short first-person poems the hardship she faces relocating with her mother and negotiating the further loss of a good friend while trying to adjust to a new school. Gabby has always been something of a dreamer, but when she begins study in her new class, she finds her thoughts straying even more. She admits: “Some words / sit still on the page / holding a story steady. / … / But other words have wings / that wake my daydreams. / They … / tickle my imagination, / and carry my thoughts away.” To illustrate Gabby’s inner wanderings, Grimes’ narrative breaks from the present into episodic bursts of vivid poetic reminiscence. Luckily, Gabby’s new teacher recognizes this inability to focus to be a coping mechanism and devises a daily activity designed to harness daydreaming’s creativity with a remarkably positive result for both Gabby and the entire class. Throughout this finely wrought narrative, Grimes’ free verse is tight, with perfect breaks of line and effortless shifts from reality to dream states and back.
An inspirational exploration of caring among parent, teacher and child—one of Grimes’ best. (Poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59078-985-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud.
Eleven-year-old Nellie’s investigative reporting leads her to solve a mystery, start a newspaper, and learn key lessons about growing up.
Nellie’s voice is frank and often funny—and always full of information about newspapers. She tells readers of the first meeting of her newspaper club and then says, “But maybe I’m burying the lede…what Dad calls it when a reporter puts the most interesting part…in the middle or toward the end.” (This and other journalism vocabulary is formally defined in a closing glossary.) She backtracks to earlier that summer, when she and her mother were newly moved into a house next to her mother’s best friend in rural Bear Creek, Maine. Nellie explains that the newspaper that employed both of her parents in “the city” had folded soon after her father left for business in Asia. When Bear Creek Park gets closed due to mysterious, petty crimes, Nellie feels compelled to investigate. She feels closest to her dad when on the park’s swings, and she is more comfortable interviewing adults than befriending peers. Getting to know a plethora of characters through Nellie’s eyes is as much fun as watching Nellie blossom. Although astute readers will have guessed the park’s vandalizers, they are rewarded by observing Nellie’s fact-checking process. A late revelation about Nellie’s father does not significantly detract from this fully realized story of a young girl adjusting admirably to new circumstances. Nellie and her mother present white; secondary characters are diverse.
Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7624-9685-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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