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
No sex or drugs—but plenty of live, heady rock-’n’-roll.
Two teenagers take a road trip—searching for a fugitive family member and finding…America.
It’s June 1969. Hints that her estranged but beloved big brother, Barry, has fetched up in San Francisco prompt 14-year-old Molly to enlist their fledgling-drummer cousin, Norman, 17, as driver and (with the collusion of their newly liberated moms) head west from Charleston in an old school bus. Quickly turning into anything but a straight run, the journey plunges the naïve but resilient travelers into a succession of youth-culture hot spots from Atlanta’s funky Strip to a commune in New Mexico, with stops at renowned recording studios and live-music venues. Wiles opens and closes this musically and culturally immersive road trip with extensive montages of period news photos, quotes, headlines, and lyrics, scatters smaller documentary sheaves throughout, and enriches the song titles at each chapter head with production notes. The glittering supporting cast includes famed session musician Hal Blaine, Duane Allman, Elvis, and Wavy Gravy. While leaving the era’s more-conservative, racist majority visible but at a remove from her white protagonists, the author introduces them to an interracial couple with a baby and a same-sex couple of Vietnam vets. In the end, Barry’s fate takes on minor significance next to the profound changes the trip has wrought on their hearts and minds.
No sex or drugs—but plenty of live, heady rock-’n’-roll. (author’s note, timeline, several bibliographies) (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-10609-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Telepathic kids on futuristic skateboards fleeing G-men; a little too long but totally fun.
Four kids with inexplicable powers have a close encounter in a near-future Texas.
The Sardines just want to ride their glowboards, hang out in their clubhouse, and be left alone by the class bully. It’s been years since Component G—glow—was discovered in Callaway, and on the coasts the Global War is raging, but Callaway is just a regular American suburb. Regular, that is, except for the Sardines: Dani, Avery, and the twins, Bastian and Lola. The four best friends and passionate glowboarders discover something else they have in common: They can all hear one another’s thoughts and move things with their minds. The telekinesis and telepathy (or, as Dani says, “tele-whatevers”) are scary, but maybe it can help them win the big glowboarding championship! But the Sardines start to receive terrifying messages from outer space. Are aliens coming to destroy the Earth? Faux typescript interludes from the point of view of an unnamed stranger working with the government introduce a different menace, one the kids only slowly become aware of. The Sardines, from a variety of white ethnic backgrounds, need to win the race, escape the government, and prevent the destruction of the Earth. Easy peasy. The setup is so compelling that kids will keep going even though the pace doesn’t always live up to the page count.
Telepathic kids on futuristic skateboards fleeing G-men; a little too long but totally fun. (Science fiction. 12-13)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-04768-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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