The author of Rachel Chance (1990) spins another likable melodrama about children with a precarious hold on their only home. For narrator Mary Jack, Father Matt is better than most in a long series of foster parents, though the kind Episcopal priest has a shrewish wife (Jill), and Mary Jack is stuck with most of the housework—as well as with caring for ``Jane,'' an abandoned waif who never speaks and bears terrible scars from abuse. To this uneasy mÇnage come Adam, 14, a taciturn rebel whose mother abandoned him, and Father Matt's sister Cecile, newly widowed after an auto accident that has also disabled one arm and left her aphasic. It's too much for Jill: as a stopgap, the three kids and Cecile are sent, under the nominal care of mean, indolent Gerry, to a riverside summer home Cecile has inherited, for a few weeks that extend into the whole summer. Gerry absconds with the cash; fearing they'll be split up and sent somewhere worse, the others muddle valiantly along until they end, predictably, by forming a viable new family. Cecile's recovery is uneven, but she gradually assumes a motherly role; Mary Jack learns to demand help and accept her own vulnerability; Adam proves loyal and resourceful; Jane warms to affection and finally reveals her real name. Meanwhile, a thoroughly nice high-school classmate of Cecile's turns out to be a neighbor, and a nearby camper provides some suspenseful menace. An old-fashioned fantasy, really: contrived, but genial, well-told, and engrossing. (Fiction. 10- 14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-395-59507-X
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember.
Kai’s life is upended when his coastal village is devastated in Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami in this verse novel from an author who experienced them firsthand.
With his single mother, her parents, and his friend Ryu among the thousands missing or dead, biracial Kai, 17, is dazed and disoriented. His friend Shin’s supportive, but his intact family reminds Kai, whose American dad has been out of touch for years, of his loss. Kai’s isolation is amplified by his uncertain cultural status. Playing soccer and his growing friendship with shy Keiko barely lessen his despair. Then he’s invited to join a group of Japanese teens traveling to New York to meet others who as teenagers lost parents in the 9/11 attacks a decade earlier. Though at first reluctant, Kai agrees to go and, in the process, begins to imagine a future. Like graphic novels, today’s spare novels in verse (the subgenre concerning disasters especially) are significantly shaped by what’s left out. Lacking art’s visceral power to grab attention, verse novels may—as here—feel sparsely plotted with underdeveloped characters portrayed from a distance in elegiac monotone. Kai’s a generic figure, a coat hanger for the disaster’s main event, his victories mostly unearned; in striking contrast, his rural Japanese community and how they endure catastrophe and overwhelming losses—what they do and don’t do for one another, comforts they miss, kindnesses they value—spring to life.
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember. (author preface, afterword) (Verse fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53474-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
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