A sweet story about a lucky dog that reveals itself to be a deeper story about a lucky human.
Can a girl, a dog, and a boy overcome the disadvantages of circumstance?
When Clair first hears the sad sounds of the dog chained in the yard next door at the Stewarts' house, she doesn't do anything. The neighbors are not friendly ones, and she's afraid of them. But the filth and neglect in that backyard are too much to ignore, so finally she makes friends with the big, wild, lonely dog called Wally. The neighbor's son, Danny, emerges as an accomplice, and the two of them start Wally's training, based on a book by famous dog trainer Father Jasper, becoming friends in the process. But when a tragedy befalls them, Clair questions their whole relationship and Wally's safety. Monninger offers a sweet look at a tough existence. His characters manage to stay true to their hardscrabble roots while inviting readers to join a world in which hope is a rare but welcome thing. Occasionally, the author wields too forceful a hand, especially when it comes to Clair's expression of emotional confusion in the form of physical sickness. In general, however, the characters manage to be realistic yet engaging in the face of turmoil.
A sweet story about a lucky dog that reveals itself to be a deeper story about a lucky human. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-53123-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
IN THE NEWS
Readers who gobble up every watery paranormal story will certainly enjoy this angst-drenched tale of forbidden love, but...
A retelling of “The Little Mermaid” from the point of view of the other woman.
Evie’s a fisherman’s daughter, a secret witch, and the best friend of Crown Prince Asger Niklas Bryniulf Øldenburg III of the Kingdom of Havnestad—just plain Nik to her. Her world is an alternate 19th-century Denmark, in a tiny kingdom composed of a single fishing village, where she’s a black-haired, half-Italian girl among the mostly blond Danes. Four years ago, Nik and Evie lost their beloved friend Anna to the ocean. Now—his royalty, her poverty, and the disapproval of Havnestad notwithstanding—they continue their friendship as they teeter on the cusp of adulthood. When Nik nearly drowns, he’s rescued by a girl who looks just like Anna, but he’s unconscious; only Evie sees the girl. Is the rescuer a mermaid? And is she the same person as Annemette, the lovely blonde who suddenly appears in town as if from nowhere? Regardless, Annemette and Evie become the dearest of friends almost immediately. Foreboding warnings about crossing class boundaries and burning witches foreshadow a dark and unexpected twist at novel’s climax. Overly stylized prose, especially in the occasional third-person perspective chapters, slow the action with their forced poetic style.
Readers who gobble up every watery paranormal story will certainly enjoy this angst-drenched tale of forbidden love, but everyone else should stay on dry land . (Fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: July 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-243877-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Another teenager-with-a-dead-parent-gets-their-heart-broken tale.
The grief of losing a parent to cancer and the grief of a breakup—they may not be on the same scale, but for Maya, they feel connected.
After her boyfriend, Whit, breaks up with her the summer before she starts college, Maya goes through her dead mother’s scientific research papers and finds an experiment on romantic attraction. She decides to carry on the research herself, with help from her mother’s former assistant. After all, if she can get Whit to remember what it felt like when everything was good between them, he’d want her back, right? In need of more test subjects, she plays with the hearts and minds of two other friends, Kyle and Asher, with little consideration for their feelings. Also given little consideration? Her decision to ingest the serum made from her subjects’ DNA samples and other materials stolen from the lab. She keeps her two closest friends, Yael and Bryan, who are both gay, ignorant of her experiment in this science-y twist on the age-old tale of a broken heart. Some fun, quirky details give the story and its characters a boost, but in general, there is little to distinguish this novel from the rest of the teenage breakup genre. The characters are entertaining yet predictable, the action is well-paced but predictable, the premise is mildly interesting yet....The book assumes a white default.
Another teenager-with-a-dead-parent-gets-their-heart-broken tale. (Fiction. 13-15)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-76464-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
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