by Joann Mazzio ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1992
When Alex reports that his friend Eddie is missing on a mountain near Albuquerque, even the police pay little attention. Following 12 happy years with his grandparents, Alex (15) has recently moved into a trailer with his mother, a cocktail waitress with dreams of being a dancer. After Eddie, best friend and neighbor, is struck by his stepfather Paco, the boys skip school to pan for gold. Impulsively, Eddie hides; threatening weather forces Alex to leave without him, hoping to find him at home. When Eddie doesn't return, Alex seeks help, only to be suspected of helping Eddie run away or even killing him. Because Eddie is Mexican, Alex also meets outright prejudice among the adults he needs to depend on, including a school counselor and his own mother. Frustrated and troubled, Alex is encouraged by feisty Candelario, disabled by a bone disease, and by an unexpected new ally, Gwen. Finally, the grieving Alex takes a gun Eddie stole from Paco and returns to the mountain to hold a private service for Eddie and perhaps end his own life; consoled by a poem Gwen has offered (``Nothing Gold Can Stay'') and inspired by the life-affirming (though doomed) Candelario, he throws away the gun—and finally discovers Eddie's body under a rock slide. Skillfully integrating important issues into a narrative propelled by dramatic incidents, Mazzio sketches several believable characters but focuses on Alex, a lonely boy forced to make tough decisions. Well-crafted suspense. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-395-59506-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1992
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by Ransom Riggs ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 7, 2011
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
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by Ransom Riggs ; illustrated by Andrew Davidson
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by Walter Dean Myers ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 31, 1999
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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by Walter Dean Myers ; adapted by Guy A. Sims ; illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile
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