An earnest and creditable effort that will resonate with thespians both young and old.
When you are a (nearly) teenage aspiring actress, sometimes it feels like "all the world's a stage," but Beth Sondquist's favorite stage is about to be repossessed.
For 12 1/2–year-old Beth, acting at Oakfield Children's Theater is her entire life. Though primarily cast in small roles, she dreams of someday playing Shakespeare's most famous teen heroine: Juliet. But after eavesdropping on a conversation with the theater's new owner, Beth learns that the 50-year-old children's theater is to be converted into an adult performance space. To save her stage, Beth must help prove that children's theater is more than mere playtime. For Wetzel, the theater serves as both muse and pulpit from which she fights the notion that children (and their theatrical pursuits) are less serious than grown-ups. Although some characters fit into conventional types, the novel effectively captures the cadence and essence of preteen-speak and the intense, hyperbolic feeling of life onstage, when flubbing a line or missing an entrance is as catastrophic as being grounded. While Beth's zeal for theater rings true, however, at times her incessant demonstration of theater knowledge feels less organic than it should. Beth's adventures drive the narrative, but often she is upstaged by theater itself, which feels like the real star of the show.
An earnest and creditable effort that will resonate with thespians both young and old. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63450-183-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Timely and pointed.
A Chinese girl moves to America to be reunited with her family.
When she was 5, Lina’s parents and baby sister left her in Beijing with her grandmother. Now she arrives in Southern California as a 10-year-old stranger to her own family. And what of the American dream? Her scientist father toils (sans green card) for a villainous, bigoted organic farmer, while her mother, unemployed since the pandemic put the nail salon where she worked out of business, makes bath bombs to sell online. They live in a one-bedroom apartment whose back rent is due in six weeks. Why isn’t Lina in any of the pictures displayed in their home? School is worse. Bullied by mean girls for her English, she vows never to speak again. But with the help of her ELL teacher, the school librarian, and a new friend, Lina begins to find her confidence and her voice through reading. Yang covers a lot of ground, from immigrant experiences and socio-economic inequities to climate change and middle school angst. The plotline that really stands out, however, is when Lina discovers that books can comfort the struggling, link people together, and create changes both internal and external. This theme propels the action through the book’s satisfying climax when she must decide whether to use her voice to stop a book that she loves from being banned in her classroom.
Timely and pointed. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8833-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
Remarkable.
A “half-Chinese and half-white” girl finds her place in a Little House–inspired fictional settler town.
After the death of her Chinese mother, Hanna, an aspiring dressmaker, and her White father seek a fresh start in Dakota Territory. It’s 1880, and they endure challenges similar to those faced by the Ingallses and so many others: dreary travel through unfamiliar lands, the struggle to protect food stores from nature, and the risky uncertainty of establishing a livelihood in a new place. Fans of the Little House books will find many of the small satisfactions of Laura’s stories—the mouthwatering descriptions of victuals, the attention to smart building construction, the glorious details of pleats and poplins—here in abundance. Park brings new depth to these well-trodden tales, though, as she renders visible both the xenophobia of the town’s White residents, which ranges in expression from microaggressions to full-out assault, and Hanna’s fight to overcome it with empathy and dignity. Hanna’s encounters with women of the nearby Ihanktonwan community are a treat; they hint at the whole world beyond a White settler perspective, a world all children deserve to learn about. A deeply personal author’s note about the story’s inspiration may leave readers wishing for additional resources for further study and more clarity about her use of Lakota/Dakota. While the cover art unfortunately evokes none of the richness of the text and instead insinuates insidious stereotypes, readers who sink into the pages behind it will be rewarded.
Remarkable. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-328-78150-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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