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
Over-the-top but ultimately wise
Hyperbole reigns supreme!
Indian-American Winnie’s been suffering mightily since her parents’ divorce. Neither one will give an inch, so Winnie’s days are precisely divided between the warring, very peculiar adults, with the leftover day, Wednesday, spent in her magnificent treehouse. In trying to outdo each other by overcelebrating every conceivable holiday, Winnie’s parents consume all of their daughter’s time. She’s now in grave danger of failing fifth grade. In desperation, she retreats to her treehouse, refusing to come down. Her nine school friends, depicted on the cover as being of varying races, unexpectedly join her there, each with a (trivial) gripe with parents, their strike resulting in instant fame. Due to a legal technicality, the kids can stay, but that doesn’t keep the powerless adults from torturing them with loud music and bright spotlights. The third-person tale is presented from Winnie’s perspective, interspersed with recipes, instructions for crafts, and, primarily, her friends’ Post-it comments. By the 14th day, Winnie’s sleep-deprived friends are splintering apart just like her parents did. With guidance from an insightful uncle she finds her voice and helps them all go home, fulfilling not their demands but what each one really needed. Her wayward parents remain unreachable though—until she realizes that she has to apply her determined persistence and dynamic, assertive voice with them too.
Over-the-top but ultimately wise . (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-17500-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Earnest and perceptive.
An autistic girl campaigns to memorialize women branded as witches.
Eleven-year-old Addie knows what it’s like to be different. Her acute hearing makes loud sounds painful. Hugs, eye contact, and certain textures are hard to tolerate, and she can’t always understand people’s expressions. Her prickly older sister Nina is hard to read. Addie’s mean-spirited teacher publicly scorns her work, dismisses her capability, and even joins her classmates’ taunts. Only Addie’s other older sister, outspoken Keedie, who’s also autistic, really understands her fascination with sharks or the fatigue of “masking” her natural behavior to appease neurotypical people. So when Addie learns that her Scottish village once killed nonconforming women accused of witchcraft, her keen empathy compels her to petition for a memorial. But how can she convince a committee that doesn’t believe she can think for herself? Though exposition is occasionally heavy-handed and secondary characters somewhat one-dimensional, the author, herself neurodivergent, imbues Addie’s unapologetically autistic perspective with compassion and insight. Addie’s accounts of constantly second-guessing herself ring painfully true, and her observations are diamond sharp; she scrutinizes people’s faces to ensure they’re “never confused or offended” but wonders, “Are any of them ever doing the same for me?” The bullying Addie endures will leave readers’ stomachs in sympathetic knots, but Addie’s nuanced relationships with her sisters and a new friend, Audrey, infuse humor and heart. Most characters default to White.
Earnest and perceptive. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-37425-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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