A terrible car accident has crippled Molly’s father and shattered her life in this slight but moving friendship tale. Molly has to start a new, cheaper school—where, inexplicably, all the students are very wealthy—now that her family is living on her mother’s waitress income. Her schooldays are tortured by snotty, rich Vanessas and Courtneys, and every evening she comforts her depressed and newly quadriplegic father. Her only friend is the school freak, Chrys Lepido, who always wears an overcoat and eats milkweed for lunch. Chrys and Molly form a science fair team, and advance to the finals with their butterfly models. But Chrys has a secret deformity, and Molly is worried that her father will never recover. Together, as true friends, they find forgiveness, self-respect, and victory. The magic of technology makes for a pat, but satisfyingly happy, epilogue. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-73093-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
Words and art combine to create a moving story.
Imagination and drawing help two grieving children in this illustrated novel by the creator of the popular Timmy Failure series and the comic strip “Pearls Before Swine.”
Things are not looking up for Saint (“I wasn’t named for a bearded guy in heaven. I was named for a football team in Louisiana”). Her favorite toy store is demolished, and her beloved diner closes. It’s all part of the gentrification for which she holds her single mother, who works long hours as a real estate agent and frequently breaks her promises, responsible. Saint very much likes reticent neighbor Daniel “Chance” McGibbons, who uses a cane, but first she has to win his friendship after an awkward beginning at his birthday party. When the uncle Chance lives with sells to developers, Saint’s determination to save his home penetrates Chance’s reserve. The kids’ subsequent shenanigans will delight readers. The story is generously illustrated with Pastis’ characteristic black-and-white cartoon line drawings, mostly of the two round-headed kids, whose hair and skin are as white as the page. Longtime neighborhood resident Old Lady Trifaldi helps Saint learn to cope with change by looking at the stars from her roof, “to make time go backward.” Pastis fills this deceptively simple first-person account with humor, puns, turns, and twists—and the final twist gives this friendship tale its surprising depth.
Words and art combine to create a moving story. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781665929622
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Falters in its oversimplified portrayal of a complicated region and people.
Parallel storylines take readers through the lives of two young people on Sept. 11 in 2001 and 2019.
In the contemporary timeline, Reshmina is an Afghan girl living in foothills near the Pakistan border that are a battleground between the Taliban and U.S. armed forces. She is keen to improve her English while her twin brother, Pasoon, is inspired by the Taliban and wants to avenge their older sister, killed by an American bomb on her wedding day. Reshmina helps a wounded American soldier, making her village a Taliban target. In 2001, Brandon Chavez is spending the day with his father, who works at the World Trade Center’s Windows on the World restaurant. Brandon is heading to the underground mall when a plane piloted by al-Qaida hits the tower, and his father is among those killed. The two storylines develop in parallel through alternating chapters. Gratz’s deeply moving writing paints vivid images of the loss and fear of those who lived through the trauma of 9/11. However, this nuance doesn’t extend to the Afghan characters; Reshmina and Pasoon feel one-dimensional. Descriptions of the Taliban’s Afghan victims and Reshmina's gentle father notwithstanding, references to all young men eventually joining the Taliban and Pasoon's zeal for their cause counteract this messaging. Explanations for the U.S. military invasion of Afghanistan in the author’s note and in characters’ conversations too simplistically present the U.S. presence.
Falters in its oversimplified portrayal of a complicated region and people. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-24575-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
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