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
A story of the Great Depression that’s both gritty and gratifying.
The year 1933 is a rough time for three kids to be on their own, but the Turners prove themselves capable.
The rest of their family has passed away or disappeared, and 12-year-old Hallie, 16-year-old Tom, and 6-year-old Benny are driving west looking for work when their car breaks down on the side of the road, beyond affordable repair. Luckily, the land where they camp is owned by the Carlsons, a nice farming family that understands both what it means to struggle and what it’s like to care for a child like Benny, since their daughter is similar. “His face wasn’t like other babies’ faces. As he grew older, he didn’t seem to learn as quickly as other children.” They make the orphans feel welcome as winter sets in. But will the rest of the community come to accept the Turners as more than squatters? It takes a near tragedy to find out. Dallas offers up her signature blend of compelling plot, vivid characters, and riveting history to both entertain and enlighten about a hard decade, though Benny, who evidently has Down syndrome, does come across as a plot device. Most main and secondary characters feel fully realized and three-dimensional, while the setting is drawn with delicate-but-vivid strokes and feels almost like its own character. This narrative is full of fascinating details about flour-sack dresses and bean sandwiches. Characters seem to default to white, with no mention of skin color.
A story of the Great Depression that’s both gritty and gratifying. (glossary) (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-58536-414-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Solid but lacking distinctive flair.
Ghosts and a family secret haunt this middle-grade novel.
Twelve-year-old Rebecca is reluctantly traveling with her mom from Chicago to visit her paternal uncle’s family. When her father died six years ago, Uncle Jon’s family lived in Seattle, but they have since moved to Iowa. Now, Uncle Jon and Aunt Sylvie want to reestablish a closer family connection. They’ve offered Rebecca’s mother a quiet place to work on her Ph.D. Rebecca will be babysitting her 2-year-old cousin, Justin, but she’d much rather be going to summer camp with her best friend, Jenna. As a parting gift, Jenna gave Rebecca a book titled Heart-Stopping Heartland Hauntings; ghosts and ghost stories are a fascination of Rebecca’s, something she shared with her late father. Maybe, she hopes, the house in Iowa will be haunted. This competently plotted story includes many genre staples—a tween crush, flawed adults, a mean girl with a backstory, and even treasure of a sort. The writing, however, lacks confident originality and relies on standard tropes and metaphors (e.g., thunderstorms frequently presage ghostly encounters). The plot explores family themes around birth, death, and divorce but eschews deeper nuances that could lift it from ordinary to extraordinary. Nevertheless, it is interesting enough and likely to sustain the interest of younger readers in particular. Characters are cued White.
Solid but lacking distinctive flair. (Paranormal. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780593570005
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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