Sierra’s father has been sick for a long time, but his death still hits her, and her family, hard. Her mother is moody, her brother seems not to notice anything has happened, and, though friends open up to Sierra with their memories of her dad, the 13-year-old can visit her own memories safely only by speaking to the photograph of Abraham Lincoln she keeps in her room. She knows a lot about “A.L.’s” life and childhood, and compares his hardships and peculiarities to her own. While this allows for a little American history and an interesting perspective on Sierra's interracial Jewish/Cuban family history, it is a weak device. As a result, the first third of the narrative meanders until the emergence of Sierra’s long-time best friend, Eli, as a pivotal character. As their relationship shifts, Sierra's family grows into a new unit—scarred, but healthy. As in her other novels (Losing Louisa, 1999, etc.), Caseley's characters are interesting and fully realized—flawed, but sympathetic—and readers can enjoy this as a middle-school novel as well as a story about grief. Though slow to start, it’s a satisfying read. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-688-15934-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2000
Like Paul Fleischman’s Path of the Pale Horse (1983), which has the same setting, or Anna Myers’s Graveyard Girl (1995),...
In an intense, well-researched tale that will resonate particularly with readers in parts of the country where the West Nile virus and other insect-borne diseases are active, Anderson (Speak, 1999, etc.) takes a Philadelphia teenager through one of the most devastating outbreaks of yellow fever in our country’s history.
It’s 1793, and though business has never been better at the coffeehouse run by Matilda’s widowed, strong-minded mother in what is then the national capital, vague rumors of disease come home to roost when the serving girl dies without warning one August night. Soon church bells are ringing ceaselessly for the dead as panicked residents, amid unrelenting heat and clouds of insects, huddle in their houses, stream out of town, or desperately submit to the conflicting dictates of doctors. Matilda and her mother both collapse, and in the ensuing confusion, they lose track of each other. Witnessing people behaving well and badly, Matilda first recovers slowly in a makeshift hospital, then joins the coffeehouse’s cook, Emma, a free African-American, in tending to the poor and nursing three small, stricken children. When at long last the October frosts signal the epidemic’s end, Emma and Matilda reopen the coffeehouse as partners, and Matilda’s mother turns up—alive, but a trembling shadow of her former self.
Like Paul Fleischman’s Path of the Pale Horse (1983), which has the same setting, or Anna Myers’s Graveyard Girl (1995), about a similar epidemic nearly a century later, readers will find this a gripping picture of disease’s devastating effect on people, and on the social fabric itself. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-83858-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
A charming adventure stocked with a house-sized spider, an Afro comb gifted by a goddess, and a giant flying rodent—one who...
A soccer-loving, American-born Nigerian 13-year-old matures into her mystical powers.
A few years after her Igbo parents brought their children to live in Nigeria (Akata Witch, 2011), Sunny Nwazue had learned she belonged to the mystical Leopard People. Now she alternates among regular school; Leopard training with her teacher, Sugar Cream; training with her magical alter ego spirit face; and hiding her secret life from her parents and brothers. Sunny is albino, though her magic has eliminated most disabling effects aside from a need to wear glasses. A superstitious bigot accuses Sunny (who does draw supernatural power from her albinism) of being a witch; as albino Nigerians suffer genuine harm from such accusations, the truth in this attack strikes a discordant note. The magic appears influenced by Igbo religious practices in Sunny’s diverse Nigeria, populated by Muslims and Christians, where Sunny and her African-American and Nigerian friends learn magic and eat in Uzoma’s Chinese Restaurant. Sunny's been having strange nightmares, possibly tied to new environmental disasters. An oracle explains that these dreams are prophetic and sends her and her friends to a magical city populated with spirits who chat on cellphones. Much like their magical world, it’s “simultaneously ancient and modern West African.” It’s a hefty tome for a middle school read, but Sunny’s an inviting character who keeps the pace moving.
A charming adventure stocked with a house-sized spider, an Afro comb gifted by a goddess, and a giant flying rodent—one who loves hip-hop. (Fantasy. 11-14)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-670-78561-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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