A compulsively readable account of a young teen’s journey toward hope.
The cadence and imagery of poetry illuminate a journey through grief and fear to healing and self-discovery.
In her second verse novel, Fritz uses narrative free verse and the imagery of oceans and lighthouses in rhythmic poetry to tell the story of Claire Sloan, a 13-year-old who navigates an awakening sense of self along with the shock of witnessing her mother suffer a serious medical event. The poems, told in Claire’s first-person narration, are divided into three parts that build on one another like successive waves. In “Low Tide,” readers learn about Claire’s family’s summer vacation in Maine and the sudden onset of her mom’s ruptured brain aneurysm. Claire brings readers with her through her mom’s time in the hospital and her fears about what it might mean if she doesn’t survive. In “Midtide,” poems narrate Claire’s return home to Pennsylvania, where she enters eighth grade, swims in the churning waters of young adolescence, and explores her grief. In “High Tide,” Claire’s mom returns home from rehab; the poems evoke the entire family’s healing journey, including Claire’s discovery of how to best express her own burgeoning hope and understanding. The author’s note describes Fritz’s personal experiences with two brain aneurysm ruptures. The strong pace and interesting subject matter make this work broadly compelling and accessible. The Sloans are white; Claire has good friends who are Black and Latine.
A compulsively readable account of a young teen’s journey toward hope. (Verse fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780823452330
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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