In a veteran author's weak first novel for young people—set in 1943 New York—a boy bounces between the palatial Upper West Side digs of a hated classmate and a hobo's makeshift shelter in Riverside Park. Jack Dalton, 11-year-old scholarship student at a posh private school, has two ambitions: to enlist and avenge his father's death at Bataan; and to marry classmate Mauricette. When he mentions the latter in a composition, she dumps him for Alfredo, gloating scion of a school trustee. Invited to Alfredo's for a party, Jack sets a fire in the sink and flees to the park, where he falls in with a bum (``The Leader''), who charms him at first, then extorts money and is later arrested for unspecified crimes. Readers who dig deep will find a metaphorical level, but they're not likely to make the effort. Victory gardens and ration stamps aren't enough to establish a sense of time or place, while Charyn displays neither sympathy nor understanding for his young folk, who—unlike some of the adults (Jack's grieving mother; a German-American janitor)—show not a trace of genuine feeling or strength of character. The plot jibs arbitrarily, ending with Jack's graduation and a labored platitude about the value of a father figure. Wartime New York gets a livelier evocation in Avi's ALA Notable ``Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?'' (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: April 30, 1993
ISBN: 0-374-30476-9
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
A world-class charmer, Clements (The Janitor’s Boy, 2000, etc.) woos aspiring young authors—as well as grown up publishers, editors, agents, parents, teachers, and even reviewers—with this tongue-in-cheek tale of a 12-year-old novelist’s triumphant debut. Sparked by a chance comment of her mother’s, a harried assistant editor for a (surely fictional) children’s imprint, Natalie draws on deep reserves of feeling and writing talent to create a moving story about a troubled schoolgirl and her father. First, it moves her pushy friend Zoe, who decides that it has to be published; then it moves a timorous, second-year English teacher into helping Zoe set up a virtual literary agency; then, submitted pseudonymously, it moves Natalie’s unsuspecting mother into peddling it to her waspish editor-in-chief. Depicting the world of children’s publishing as a delicious mix of idealism and office politics, Clements squires the manuscript past slush pile and contract, the editing process, and initial buzz (“The Cheater grabs hold of your heart and never lets go,” gushes Kirkus). Finally, in a tearful, joyous scene—carefully staged by Zoe, who turns out to be perfect agent material: cunning, loyal, devious, manipulative, utterly shameless—at the publication party, Natalie’s identity is revealed as news cameras roll. Selznick’s gnomic, realistic portraits at once reflect the tale’s droll undertone and deftly capture each character’s distinct personality. Terrific for flourishing school writing projects, this is practical as well as poignant. Indeed, it “grabs hold of yourheart and never lets go.” (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82594-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
“Hear, and listen well, my friends, and I will tell you a tale that has been told for a thousand years and more.” It’s not exactly a rarely told tale, either, though this complete rendition is distinguished by both handsome packaging and a prose narrative that artfully mixes alliterative language reminiscent of the original, with currently topical references to, for instance, Grendel’s “endless terror raids,” and the “holocaust at Heorot.” Along with being printed on heavy stock and surrounded by braided borders, the text is paired to colorful scenes featuring a small human warrior squaring off with a succession of grimacing but not very frightening monsters in battles marked by but a few discreet splashes of blood. Morpurgo puts his finger on the story’s enduring appeal—“we still fear the evil that stalks out there in the darkness . . . ”—but offers a version unlikely to trouble the sleep of more sensitive readers or listeners. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7636-3206-6
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
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