For an action-packed superhero tale sans egregious stereotyping, skip this and stick with Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief...
A congenitally blind boy discovers that he’s a superhero.
When his dad took him aside for “the talk” when he was 12, wisecracking Phillip expected a humiliating lecture on sex. Instead, he learned that, like everyone else in their small town, he’s a “custodian”: a superhero. Phillip has inherited telekinesis, which his blindness complicates. Relegated to the special education class at Freepoint High School, Phillip befriends Henry, an overweight, telepathic wheelchair user; Bentley, who has cerebral palsy and a hypersmart mind; Freddie, whose asthma hampers his power of gigantism; and James, also blind, who teleports. When a mysterious villain appears, the friends—dubbing themselves “the Ables”—must combine their skills to save the town. Scott’s debut squanders an intriguing premise in a cliché-riddled plot; fans of superhero fare will guess twists long before they’re revealed. Preachy, expository dialogue and Phillip’s summary-laden narration slow the pace, and weak character development renders even tragedy flat. Despite the (mostly) realistic portrayal of Phillip’s blindness, stale disability tropes abound, including disability-negating superpowers, Phillip’s “fantastic hearing,” and the glaringly infantilizing portrayal of a teen with Down syndrome as a “big teddy bear” with “the mind of a young child in the body of a grown man.” Most characters are assumed white; Henry is black. Occasional line drawings illustrate the text.
For an action-packed superhero tale sans egregious stereotyping, skip this and stick with Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief (2005). (Fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68442-336-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Turner
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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