The eighth-grade family living class assignment is for each student to care for an egg for two weeks, as if it were a real baby. Buddy isn't worried. She's had lots of nurturing experience with her sister Reenie, who has Down's syndrome. Then her parents decide to move to the ramshackle farm outside of town that they inherited from an elderly aunt. It's a dump, and Buddy hates it. Not only does she miss living near her best friend, but she has to ride a bus to school, and her fellow riders are anything but kind to Reenie. A mysterious boy, Dallas, comes to the girls' aid more than once, and Buddy discovers she's not the only one with problems. The point is driven home when she is almost killed in an accident; it is only with the help of Reenie and Dallas that she survives, and in the process accepts some hard truths about herself and the people around her. This engrossing story has enough suspense to keep it hurtling along, but never at the cost of characterization. Everyone is believable, from multi-faceted Buddy, whose love and concern for Reenie is touching and admirable, to Reenie herself, a real personality with some exasperating habits. The secondary characters are just as developed, making every turn of the page and twist of the plot part of a very good read. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-22911-6
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
A world-class charmer, Clements (The Janitor’s Boy, 2000, etc.) woos aspiring young authors—as well as grown up publishers, editors, agents, parents, teachers, and even reviewers—with this tongue-in-cheek tale of a 12-year-old novelist’s triumphant debut. Sparked by a chance comment of her mother’s, a harried assistant editor for a (surely fictional) children’s imprint, Natalie draws on deep reserves of feeling and writing talent to create a moving story about a troubled schoolgirl and her father. First, it moves her pushy friend Zoe, who decides that it has to be published; then it moves a timorous, second-year English teacher into helping Zoe set up a virtual literary agency; then, submitted pseudonymously, it moves Natalie’s unsuspecting mother into peddling it to her waspish editor-in-chief. Depicting the world of children’s publishing as a delicious mix of idealism and office politics, Clements squires the manuscript past slush pile and contract, the editing process, and initial buzz (“The Cheater grabs hold of your heart and never lets go,” gushes Kirkus). Finally, in a tearful, joyous scene—carefully staged by Zoe, who turns out to be perfect agent material: cunning, loyal, devious, manipulative, utterly shameless—at the publication party, Natalie’s identity is revealed as news cameras roll. Selznick’s gnomic, realistic portraits at once reflect the tale’s droll undertone and deftly capture each character’s distinct personality. Terrific for flourishing school writing projects, this is practical as well as poignant. Indeed, it “grabs hold of yourheart and never lets go.” (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82594-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
This profoundly moving story is all the more impressive because of its basis in fact. Although the story is fictionalized, its most harrowing aspects are true: “Today, more than two hundred million children between the ages of five and seventeen are ‘economically active’ in the world.” Iqbal Masih, a real boy, was murdered at age 13. His killers have never been found, but it’s believed that a cartel of ruthless people overseeing the carpet industry, the “Carpet Mafia,” killed him. The carpet business in Pakistan is the backdrop for the story of a young Pakistani girl in indentured servitude to a factory owner, who also “owned” the bonds of 14 children, indentured by their own families for sorely needed money. Fatima’s first-person narrative grips from the beginning and inspires with every increment of pride and resistance the defiant Iqbal instills in his fellow workers. Although he was murdered for his efforts, Iqbal’s life was not in vain; the accounts here of children who were liberated through his and activist adults’ efforts will move readers for years to come. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85445-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
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