Poetic, immersive, hopeful.
A story about war and displacement, resilience and adjustment.
Warga portrays with extraordinary talent the transformation of a family’s life before and after the war began in Syria. Living in a tourist town on the Syrian coastline, Jude experiences the inequalities in her society firsthand. With the unfolding of the Arab Spring, her older brother, Issa, wants to join protests against the Syrian regime. The parents are in favor of staying out of it, but with news of a new baby and nearby towns turning into battlegrounds, Jude and her mother travel to join her uncle, a medical doctor, and his family in the American Midwest. Her free-verse narration cuts straight to the bone: “Back home, / food was / rice / lamb / fish / hummus / pita bread / olives / feta cheese / za’atar with olive oil. / Here, / that food is / Middle Eastern Food. / Baguettes are French food. / Spaghetti is Italian food. / Pizza is both American and Italian, / depending on which restaurant you go to.” Jude, who has always loved American movies, shares her observations—often with humor—as she soaks everything in and learns this new culture. Only when she starts feeling comfortable with having two homes, one in Syria and one in the U.S., does a terrible incident make her confront the difficult realities of being Muslim and Arab in the U.S.
Poetic, immersive, hopeful. (Historical verse fiction. 11-adult)Pub Date: May 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-274780-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Original, hilarious, thought-provoking and wicked smart: not to be missed.
Kevin Phifer, 13, a black seventh-grader in 1990s Richmond, Va., and hero of this sparkling debut, belongs in the front ranks of fiction’s hormone-addled, angst-ridden adolescents, from Holden Caulfield to the teenage Harry Potter.
Kevin wants a fade, thinking the stylish haircut will bolster his shaky standing in the cutthroat world of middle school, where he’s just one friend away from eating lunch alone. But his mother, a church secretary and solo parent studying for a nursing degree at night, won’t even try. Expressing his frustration leads to a week’s grounding. Tyrell and his entourage of bullies make Kevin’s life miserable at school. In science lab, Aisha, girl of Kevin’s dreams, points out his “mushy tushy.” Sandbagged by dizzyingly abrupt mood shifts, Kevin hurtles from altruism to craven self-interest, mature self-knowledge to wild fantasy. His anchor in rough seas is Uncle Paul, a quiet, manly museum security guard. Weary of hiding his sexual orientation, Paul’s recently come out to family and friends but has yet to tell Kevin, for whom “faggot” is the worst insult there is. Paul’s perspective, with its temporal and social context, enriches and deepens the narrative, offering an effective contrast to Kevin’s volatile reality, where “now” is all that counts.
Original, hilarious, thought-provoking and wicked smart: not to be missed. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9884804-3-8
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Curbside Splendor
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
Loyalty issues fuel an emotionally turbulent but slow-moving middle volume.
Fugitive young superheroes and former supervillains inch toward an uneasy bond following the opener’s climactic disaster (The Cloak Society, 2012).
Huddling in a secret hideout, former dastard-in-training Alex and his motley group of junior Rangers of Justice allies work toward rescuing the adult members of the Rangers, who have been trapped in the other dimensional Gloom by the shadowy Cloak Society to which Alex’s villainous parents belong. That work is hindered by Alex’s nagging fears (justified, as it turns out) that not all of his teen and preteen associates are on the up and up. To a cast already well stocked with costumed good and bad guys wielding flashy superpowers and high-tech gear, Kraatz adds new characters endowed with prehensile hair and the ability to control insects. But this episode lags. Though he also trots in a trio of fiendishly clever assassins to provide the episode with a few stylized, indecisive fight scenes and real, or seeming, betrayals, not only does the overarching plotline barely budge, but Alex’s continual doubts and frets make for glacial pacing and much waiting around for the action to start.
Loyalty issues fuel an emotionally turbulent but slow-moving middle volume. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-209550-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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