In this arty, open-ended tale, Coles (with Stephen Schwandt, Funnybone, 1992) writes notes to his own characters, leading them on a treasure hunt through Pittsburgh's history as well as some of its unsavory neighborhoods. In an old library copy of Dickens's Great Expectations, high school senior Mark Bettors finds three crisp $100 bills and a letter that, in grandiloquent, allusion-spattered language, invites him to undertake a quest for a great, though unspecified, reward. For his one companion, he chooses Zeena Curry, a classmate with a white father, a black mother, and a big chip on her shoulder. Except that they are both rude, disagreeable sorts (especially to their parents), the two seem to have little in common, but they make the effort to work together, in the library (Mark ``hated librarians. They always acted like you were stupid for not knowing things'') and at a series of historical sites. Predictably, Mark and Zeena become close; they learn in a final letter that their treasure is the realization that everyone has a personal, self- created story. Students of Pittsburgh's past might enjoy the itinerary, but many books—Julian Thompson's Herb Seasoning (1990) among them—take lighter, more imaginative routes to that pot of gold. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-689-80254-4
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in...
This is almost like a play for 18 voices, as Grimes (Stepping Out with Grandma Mac, not reviewed, etc.) moves her narration among a group of high school students in the Bronx.
The English teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wesley, his response to a month of reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Soon there’s an open-mike poetry reading, sponsored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then later, every week. The chapters in the students’ voices alternate with the poems read by that student, defiant, shy, terrified. All of them, black, Latino, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alienation endemic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appealing voices. Among them: Janelle, who is tired of being called fat; Leslie, who finds friendship in another who has lost her mom; Diondra, who hides her art from her father; Tyrone, who has faith in words and in his “moms”; Devon, whose love for books and jazz gets jeers. Beyond those capsules are rich and complex teens, and their tentative reaching out to each other increases as through the poems they also find more of themselves. Steve writes: “But hey! Joy / is not a crime, though / some people / make it seem so.”
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in the poetry. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2569-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
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