Moving and memorable.
Perpetually angry, motherless Cammie O’Reilly, the warden’s daughter, sets about turning Eloda Pupko, the silent, distant trustee working as “Cammie-keeper,” into a mother figure over the summer she turns 13.
Set in 1959 in the Two Mills, Pennsylvania, of Spinelli's own childhood, this is firmly grounded in its time and place and full of details of life at Hancock County Prison. Cammie’s essential compassion shows in her willingness to spend time with all the incarcerated women, her particular affection for Boo Boo, a large, ebullient black woman who befriends the sad white child, and her disgust at best friend Reggie's admiration for their most famous inmate, a murderer. Reggie lusts for fame herself; one highlight of the summer is her appearance on the TV show Bandstand—watched and loudly applauded by a gang of rising Two Mills seventh-graders who are the friends who move into Cammie’s life without any apparent effort and who are firmly ejected as Cammie’s spiral into depression’s depths approaches its climax. Cammie tells her own story chronologically, until its whirlwind crest; she frames it with scenes from the present. It’s a tapestry of grief and redemption, woven by a master storyteller who never loses his focus on Cammie’s personal journey but connects it to Eloda’s in a powerful twist.
Moving and memorable. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-375-83199-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
PROFILES
This middle-grade story of family, friendship and school has all the right elements, but it lacks an ignition spark.
A Rube Goldberg namesake discovers there’s more to life than inventions.
Fifth-grader Ruby Goldberg spends more time thinking about elaborate contraptions than about school or the people around her. Determined to win the gold medal that has eluded her in earlier science fairs, she focuses all her attention on the construction of her entry, ignoring her patient best friend’s needs and her grieving grandfather’s feelings. But there’s hope that, like the cartoonist and inventor she was named for, she can become a more well-rounded person. At her father’s suggestion, she collaborates with classmate Dominic, a former rival. Working together leads to friendship, and their intricate system for the delivery of a newspaper and slippers is, indeed, an engineering marvel—though she comes to understand it will never replace her grandfather’s dog. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite all come together, despite Ruby’s appropriately self-centered and sometimes-funny narration. By her own account, Ruby has been supercompetitive for years; her sudden behavior changes are therefore not quite credible. Ruby’s inventive mind is interesting, though the actual diagrammed workings of her Tomato-Matic 2000 are sadly opaque (thank goodness the narrative describes it).
This middle-grade story of family, friendship and school has all the right elements, but it lacks an ignition spark. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8027-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2014
Not your typical kid-with-cancer book.
A rare form of cancer takes its toll in this novel based on the author’s experience.
Seventh grader Ross Maloy wants nothing more than to be an average middle schooler, hanging out with his best friends, Abby and Isaac, avoiding the school bully, and crushing on the popular girl. There’s just one thing keeping Ross from being completely ordinary: the rare form of eye cancer that’s reduced him to the kid with cancer at school. Ross’ eye is closed in a permanent wink, and he constantly wears a cowboy hat to protect his eyes. The doctors are hopeful that Ross will be cancer free after treatment, but his vision will be impaired, and the treatments cause him to lose his hair and require the application of a particularly goopy ointment. This isn’t a cancer book built upon a foundation of prayer, hope, and life lessons. The driving force here is Ross’ justifiable anger. Ross is angry at the anonymous kids making hurtful memes about him and at Isaac for abandoning him when he needs a friend most. Ross funnels his feelings into learning how to play guitar, hoping to make a splash at the school’s talent show. The author balances this anger element well against the typical middle-grade tropes. Misunderstood bully? Check. Well-meaning parents? Check. While some of these elements will feel familiar, the novel’s emotional climax remains effectively earned. Characters are paper-white in Harrell’s accompanying cartoons.
Not your typical kid-with-cancer book. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-1514-9
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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