A paint-by-numbers coming-of-age—it’s readable, but that’s about it.
Two siblings struggle to adjust to life with their two very different uncles.
Twelve-year-old Jack and 9-year-old Birdie, white children named after Jackie Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson, respectively, are happy enough living with Uncle Carl, eating Honey Bunny Buns (a convenience-store foodstuff that shows up far too often for no discernible reason) and helping him win the heart of his food-truck–operator girlfriend. Their mother died almost a year ago in a car accident following a history of episodes that some may recognize as bipolar disorder, and Carl’s tiny town of Moser, California, is less welcoming than their old home in Oregon. Birdie’s attendance at school is spotty; classmates and administrators think that a young boy in pink leggings, headbands, and nail polish is distracting, and truancy officers remove the children to live with taciturn Uncle Patrick, who is more than happy to enforce a gender-normative dress code on Birdie. A flat plot basically follows the children through this adjustment period, and much of the conflict centers on the various bullies Birdie has to deal with, including an obligatory scene of homophobic violence in a boy’s bathroom. Despite the young protagonists, most of the book focuses on the relationships among the various adults, with the children serving more as instruments than fully realized or engaging characters.
A paint-by-numbers coming-of-age—it’s readable, but that’s about it. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-399-18677-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Kathy Dawson/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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