by Joy Huang Stoffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2015
Provocative themes help to mitigate textual infelicities.
Ava Ling Magee, a college freshman at Davison University, struggles with her mixed-race heritage and a ruthless and controlling parent in Stoffers’ debut for teens.
When Ava arrives at the dorms, she’s greeted with a typical question: “Who’s Chinese? Your mom or dad?” Her response? “Neither.” It’s a bald-faced lie, as Ava is Chinese on her mother’s side and Caucasian on her dad’s. For most of her life, Ava has felt split between two worlds, unable to feel either Chinese enough or white enough. Worse, Mei physically and verbally abuses Ava (using both English and Mandarin obscenities freely), while her dad buries himself in work. Daring to major in English, not cellular biology, Ava finds a mentor in Professor Chen, whose hair features multicolored streaks and who encourages Ava to see herself in valuable ways. Another discovery, her Chinese grandmother’s diary, written during China’s Cultural Revolution, may hold treasured insights that could heal Ava’s present. While the author shines in some moments, notably with Professor Chen and Lao lao’s diary, her prose would benefit from hearty and tough-love doses of pruning. The inclusion of Ava’s parents’ back story and narrative shifts to their perspectives detract from Ava, as she’s whole enough to carry the book. Complex racial-identity themes run deep; though overdone at times, they nonetheless expose many of the challenges of being biracial. As an alternative means of exploring these themes, readers may prefer The Latte Rebellion, by Sarah Jamila Stevenson (2011), written for a slightly younger audience.
Provocative themes help to mitigate textual infelicities. (Fiction. 16 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-987757-6-3
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Harken Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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by T.A. Barron ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2015
Words to live by, trite and larded with sentiment though they be in this particular iteration.
A small volume of homilies, spun from a 2013 speech and perfect for a graduate's gift (should pots of money not be an option).
Settled in his Crystal Cave, the old magician delivers observations and instructions gathered around "Seven Most Magical Words"—Gratitude, Courage, Knowledge, Belief, Wonder, Generosity and Hope—capped and completed by an eighth, Love. Threading in avuncular references to "my good friend Buddha," "[t]hat fellow Albert Einstein" and other luminaries, he urges listeners to turn off their electronic devices (because "being fully scheduled is not the same as being fully alive"), care for the planet, allow others their beliefs, and just generally "celebrate the wonder of it all." Most importantly, don't pass up love, because without it you "won't feel agony, but you will also never experience ecstasy." It’s hard not to wonder what the audience at Oxford University, the speech’s original audience, thought of it all.
Words to live by, trite and larded with sentiment though they be in this particular iteration. (Inspiration. 17 & up)Pub Date: March 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-17325-7
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
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edited by Shannon Watters ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 2015
An entertaining testament to the enduring richness of “Peanuts” and the creativity it still inspires.
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Celebrated cartoonists interpret the look, legacy, and worldview of the “Peanuts” comic strip in this vibrant homage to its creator.
In addition to a pantheon of iconic characters, images, and pratfalls, “Peanuts,” which ran from 1950 until the day after Schulz’s death in 2000, introduced groundbreaking themes of neurosis, failure, and unfulfillable longing into postwar America’s funny pages. This splendidly illustrated comic book gathers more than 40 modern cartoonists to explore in their own panels the impacts of these materials. Some, including contributions from Matt Groening and Tom Tomorrow, are straightforward tributes; others are single- or multipaged strips that tell complete stories using the “Peanuts” characters. Among the most amusing are Roger Langridge’s vignette of the Red Baron taking time out from World War I to get psychoanalyzed for his recurring apparent hallucinations of a flying beagle; Stan Sakai and Julie Fuji’s joyous account of Charlie Brown’s Tokyo outing with a Japanese girl; Terry Moore’s drolly deflating take on what would happen if Charlie Brown finally managed to make contact with the football; Zac Gorman’s hangdog scene of Lucy critiquing Charlie Brown’s dejected funeral oration; Jeremy Sorese’s probing meditation on the missing adults of “Peanuts,” grown from evocative recollections of his own childhood; Shaenon K. Garrity’s hilarious tale of a collective nervous breakdown precipitated by Lucy’s remorseless truth-telling; and a Lovecraft-ian epic by Evan Dorkin and Derek Charm, told through Charlie Brown’s letters to his pencil-pal—“Things here are the same. I am hated and alone”—as the ordinary quirks of the “Peanuts”-verse twist themselves into subtle, sinister portents of a demonic netherworld. Some of the cartoonists work in their own distinctive styles—from the perspectival naturalism of Chris Schweizer’s WWI tableaux to Tony Millionaire’s verminous, bug-eyed Charlie Brown and Snoopy portraits—while others imitate the Schulz-ian look. The admiration these artists feel for Schulz is palpable, as are the potency and versatility of his comic inventions. As the cartoonists take Schulz’s ideas in fresh new directions, the reader still feels that they are revealing dimensions that always existed within Schulz’s vision.
An entertaining testament to the enduring richness of “Peanuts” and the creativity it still inspires.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60886-714-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Shannon Watters & Branden Boyer-White ; illustrated by Berenice Nelle
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