A simple and powerful tale about the impact of parental addiction.
As seventh grade winds down in North Carolina, Reese Buck is eager to spend the summer drawing and playing basketball.
A week before school ends, however, he finds his father unresponsive from an opioid overdose. This wasn’t the first incident, and it drives Reese’s mother to move the two of them into a trailer on the property of her church friends, the Smiths. Reese struggles with leaving his father, fearing for his safety, and he hides the truth from close friends Tony and Ryan out of shame. As Reese gradually lets go of his anger, he embraces life on the Smith family farm. He befriends the Smiths’ grandchildren, Meg and Charlie (who has Down syndrome), and the kids enjoy canoeing, swimming, and caring for Charlie’s cats. Reese builds a new, stable life but feels guilty about enjoying himself in his father’s absence. Although his parents start repairing their relationship, an incident on Reese’s 13th birthday disrupts everything, leading Reese to begin questioning whether his father will ever be well or if he even wants to be. Debut author Cochran delivers a sensitive narrative that captures the complex guilt of self-care among those with addicted loved ones. Meg and Charlie are original characters whose emotional backstories enhance the story; the subplot involving Tony and Ryan could have been developed further but instead feels forgotten. Most characters are cued white
A simple and powerful tale about the impact of parental addiction. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781523527298
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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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