A gripping examination of a tsunami and its aftermath.
A fictionalized narrative follows a young survivor of the 2011 tsunami in Japan and looks at how his life and town change in its wake.
Hotaka Yamato (his name is rendered in the Western fashion, with family name second) and his best friend, Takeshi, are planning to see a puppet show when an earthquake suddenly hits near their seaside town. A tsunami soon follows, and their tiny village is devastated. Hotaka survives, but many do not; he is one of the fortunate residents who live on the higher grounds and is able to escape the rising waters. Three years later, the denizens are still coping with the disaster, and while the town is beginning to rebuild, the burgeoning seawall has left many residents angry. Hotaka’s classmate Sakura in particular hates the wall, along with the political corruption and sharp socio-economic division it embodies. When she and her friends protest the seawall, violence against the teens and their families ensues. Heffernan’s dramatic account spares its readers little, using its propulsive plotting to highlight not only the immediate devastation of the tsunami, but also its lingering effects. Helpful addenda include a glossary of Japanese words, historical timeline, and sources for additional reading. Fans aging out of the popular I Survived…series may appreciate the same quick pacing and the deeper dive into the aftermath of a natural disaster.
A gripping examination of a tsunami and its aftermath. (map, author’s note, timeline, glossary) (Historical fiction. 7-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-76011-376-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Easy to read and strong on sibling devotion, with frustratingly mixed messages about personal responsibility.
A boy works desperately to keep his sick little brother safe.
Twelve-year-old Timothy has a probation officer, a court-appointed psychologist, and a yearlong sentence of house arrest. He also has a 9-month-old brother who breathes through a trach tube that frequently clogs. Heavy oxygen tanks and a suction machine as loud as a jackhammer are their everyday equipment. Timothy’s crime: charging $1,445 on a stolen credit card for a month of baby Levi’s medicine, which his mother can’t afford, especially since his father left. The text shows illness, poverty, and hunger to be awful but barely acknowledges the role of, for example, weak health insurance, odd considering the nature of Timothy’s crime. The family has nursing help but not 24/7; the real house arrest in Timothy’s life isn’t a legal pronouncement, it’s the need to keep Levi breathing. Sometimes Timothy’s the only person home to do so. His court sentence requires keeping a journal; the premise that Holt’s straightforward free-verse poems are Timothy’s writing works well enough, though sometimes the verses read like immediate thoughts rather than post-event reflection. A sudden crisis at the climax forces Timothy into criminal action to save Levi’s life, but literally saving his brother from death doesn’t erase the whiff of textual indictment for lawbreaking. Even Mom equivocates, which readers may find grievously unjust.
Easy to read and strong on sibling devotion, with frustratingly mixed messages about personal responsibility. (Verse fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-3477-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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