Slick, popular science: An Issues in Focus entry, subtitled ``Everything You Wanted to Know, But Were Afraid to Ask,'' has an appealing format and suspicious content. Monroe (Alcohol, 1994, etc.) describes phobic symptoms, gives a brief history of phobias and lists a hundred of them, theories of their cause, treatment, and where to get help. Footnotes and endnotes are provided for some statements, but Monroe makes little effort to evaluate the information or the credentials of her sources. One of them (writing for Parade magazine) is identified in the main text as ``coauthor of a musical.'' ``You may know someone with a phobia, or you may have one yourself,'' Monroe comments, backing up the statement with a quotation from Woman's Day magazine that ``About 23 million [Americans]—one out of ten—say they have a phobia.'' In a discussion of several theories, she mentions that ``90 percent of all phobias are caused by physical problems with the inner ear,'' a speculative statistic that sounds like a bald fact. The tone is compassionate, and there is valuable information buried in these pages, but it's a superficial work, more likely to mislead than enlighten. (b&w photos, notes, bibliography, glossary, index). (Nonfiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-89490-723-9
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Enslow
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
Gilbert (Stone Water, 1996, etc.) writes sympathetically about a musical prodigy who yearns to be a normal teenager; a story that could have easily fallen to clichÇ becomes a penetrating study of the difference between technical brilliance and true virtuosity. Clara Alexander Lorenzo has never really considered her parents’ pronouncements that she must share her gifts with the world; suddenly, at 17, and a finalist in a competition that would assure her a full scholarship at Juilliard, she finds that the idea of becoming a concert pianist leaves her hollow. In this involving novel, the other characters are acutely drawn, each representing a part of Clara herself—Holly, her cheerleading best friend; Marshall, a committed pianist and intense love-interest; her parents, whose hopes and dreams are wrapped up in music; and Tashi, her gentle, guiding teacher, whose wisdom, perceptions, and stories of her sacrifices in her Russian homeland give Clara courage. Descriptive passages of playing are well-crafted, and Clara’s doubts about the piano are effectively juxtaposed with her passion for ballet’she is not particularly adept, but it stirs something in her. The tension builds to the competition, ending with Clara’s decision and small, unexpected gestures from the people she loves. A compassionate work. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1998
ISBN: 1-886910-23-5
Page Count: 188
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
paper 1-55885-259-X A cardboard romance enlivened slightly by its Cuban-American milieu. Maggie is smart and focused; she wants to be a nurse, as her mother is, and scarcely recalls her father, who died just out of medical school when she was a baby. Maggie and her best friend, Susie, live in Miami; they are typical teenagers whose Cuban background is evident in their use of Spanglish and in family customs and food. Maggie pines for golden jock Zach, the grandson of an elderly woman, Mrs. Maxwell, whom she helps around the house; her crush so blinds her that she refuses to see that Zach is careless of his grandmother’s needs and feelings, and dismissive of Maggie’s heritage. In a subplot, Susie sets Maggie up with Justin, her boyfriend Carlos’s best friend. Standard teen temptations are created and demolished: Justin barely escapes getting into a fight; Carlos pressures Susie for sex so she breaks up with him. A climactic Christmas dinner with Zach’s family, where Maggie is Mrs. Maxwell’s guest because her own mother has to work, convinces her of Zach’s true nature. Everything’s a little too easy and neat, but Maggie’s veering from sensible to silly will comfort teenagers who do the same. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Dec. 30, 1998
ISBN: 1-55885-258-1
Page Count: 182
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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