Offbeat and upbeat.
A road trip with two quirky cousins helps a boy understand his father, a troubled veteran.
Summer sees 11-year-old June set off to travel around the country with Larry and Cornell, his adult first cousins once removed. June, short for Henry Junior, lives in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, with his Mama. Daddy, who drinks and suffers from PTSD, served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has left home. Larry and Cornell spend their summers driving a truck around the U.S. to restore old Fords—and only Fords. They are 100% Ford men who take good care of June and share their passion for and devotion to vintage models. While working on the cars, they also interact with the owners, learning about their stories and offering them as much attention as they lavish on the autos. June gradually learns the business and about his family. He is, after all, named for Henry Ford (whose biased views are named). June gets life lessons in forgiveness and gains a better understanding of his father’s problems. As they motor through Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Louisiana, among other places, June not only learns about oil filters, but also listens to the owners’ treasured and sometimes painful memories. Along the way he even makes a friend. Car fanciers will relish the details while the family issues will resonate with many readers. Main characters read as White.
Offbeat and upbeat. (author's note) (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-31405-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A creator of illustrated stories for younger audiences tries his hand at a novel, with indifferent results. Being a resident of Berkeley, Calif., young Jason is only moderately surprised when a spaceship that looks exactly like a battered 1960 Dodge Dart comes in for a hard landing and a stubby blue-skinned geezer named Sam emerges to cadge some ketchup to re-lube the star drive. On later visits Sam makes a huge mess in the kitchen concocting space fuel from chewing gum and Gatorade and, in what passes for a climax, is kidnapped by a crazed psychotherapist bent on using alien technology to revive the fortunes of Zimbovia, a former country in Eastern Europe. Jason manufactures a rescue, eludes pursuers from the Air Force’s Area 51 (thanks to a teleporter manufactured by “Deus ex Machina Productions”) and is last seen soaring into the black with Sam. Flashes of wit in the prose and the occasional small painted or photo-collage illustrations are too pale to ignite the main payload—particularly next to Mark Haddon’s spectacular Boom! (2010) and like extraterrestrial farces. (Science fiction/humor. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9100-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
The author leaves much to be explored and explained in future episodes, but fans of Unfortunate Events will be willing to...
In this promising series opener, a homicidal maniac stalks two children through a spooky old house that’s far larger inside than outside.
Newly moved in across the street, 10-year-old Fernie chases her errant cat through the front door of the mist-wreathed mansion one night, quickly losing herself in a seemingly endless tangle of dark halls and dim rooms. There she meets Gustav, a pale and perpetually somber age-mate who explains that the house is home to millions of unattached shadows—and that she is in immediate danger from the People Taker, evil minion of the Dark Country’s would-be ruler Lord Obsidian. The ensuing flight takes the two young people through a library containing all the books never written, a room filled with the shadows of all the dinosaurs that ever were and like repositories to a climactic struggle with the genial (as it turns out) villain at the lip of the Pit leading to the Dark Country. Along the way Fernie discovers that though shadows are a little more substantial within the house, even in the outside world they are not really attached to solid bodies and actually have volition and lives of their own. Who would have guessed? Margiotta opens each chapter with appropriately atmospheric scenes of big-eyed waifs against undulating backgrounds.
The author leaves much to be explored and explained in future episodes, but fans of Unfortunate Events will be willing to wait. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-448-45833-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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