This story of friendship, courage, and survival is an imperfect peek into the Tibetan culture and way of life.
A Tibetan girl and her friend find themselves on a quest through the Himalayas.
Twelve-year-old narrator Tashi’s small Tibetan village is suffering under the heel of the Chinese military. After one of the villagers publicly sets himself on fire to protest the harshness of the occupation (a graphic event that continues to haunt Tash through the book and might well haunt readers), soldiers come to arrest Tash’s parents as suspected dissidents. Tash and her best friend, Samdup, barely escape, taking with them the illegal resistance leaflets and a coded letter her journalist dad gives her. With their two borrowed yaks, the two children are determined to make the long, dangerous trek through the Himalayas into India to seek help from the Dalai Lama, who is living there in exile. Short chapters and simple sentence structure keep the pages turning. The tale diligently provides details of Tibetan daily life, customs, and culture, and it appropriately raises questions about freedom, occupation, and exile. However, sometimes the characters’ voices sound very Western, and readers familiar with the culture may wonder at the yaks’ Western names, the characters’ nicknames, and their use of Western rather than Tibetan address for their parents. Plot-driven conveniences and a tidy ending further undercut the story’s realism. A brief bulleted list of facts concludes the story, but there is no map—an absence readers may feel.
This story of friendship, courage, and survival is an imperfect peek into the Tibetan culture and way of life. (Adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61620-819-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when...
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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