by John Feinstein ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2012
A fast-paced caper, with plenty to offer fans of both the Games and the less savory “games.” (Mystery. 10-14)
Feinstein’s latest tale of chicanery in big-time sports sends teen journalist Stevie Thomas to London to cover the Olympics, where his usual partner Susan Carol is swimming for gold.
A win at the Worlds has turned Susan Carol into a national celebrity and brought a whirl of lucrative marketing deals her way. It has also put her at odds with her father, who has fallen thoroughly under the influence of pushy agent J.P. Scott. Stevie covers the progress of his beautiful, brilliant, talented girlfriend for a Washington paper as she makes her way through the Olympics Trials and then the early heats in London. He begins to smell a rat when he spots an associate of J.P.’s meeting with a hot-looking Russian swimmer who is competing against her. A slimy marketer’s careless comment later, Stevie knows the fix is in. As is his wont, Feinstein salts the cast with real athletes and other figures from Michael Phelps to Bob Costas. He folds plenty of dramatic sports action as well as behind-the-scenes banter and personal and family conflict into a plot that moves smoothly to a suspenseful climax. Though the evidence fingering a bribed Olympics judge is rather conveniently obtained, both the crime and the marketing pressures behind it are thoroughly believable.
A fast-paced caper, with plenty to offer fans of both the Games and the less savory “games.” (Mystery. 10-14)Pub Date: May 22, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-375-86963-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
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by Mitali Perkins ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2010
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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by Mitali Perkins ; illustrated by Khoa Le
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by Jack Gantos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2011
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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