A slice-of-life glimpse at a boy trying to mean something in the universe.
Charlie (not Charles) Dickens seeks UFOs and avoids life in small-town Montana.
Charlie’s mother disappeared two years ago. Prompted by her claims beforehand, he’s certain she was abducted by aliens who’ll eventually U-turn to collect him. Now a freshman, he has no mother, no mothership, and no friend in sight save for an obese, housebound neighbor, whose body is described in derogatory terms, and a three-legged dog named Tickles. Aggressively bullied (imagine what small minds do with the name Dickens) and openly disliked at school, Charlie scurries under the radar until Seth sweeps into town. Charlie can’t understand why charismatic Seth wants to talk to him and initially retreats before being lured into the fold of friendship. Charlie is eventually forced to look skyward and wonder what’s really missing—his mother or his perspective? The prospect of aliens appearing at any second has its own brand of fantastic intrigue, but the reader’s omniscient awareness as Charlie grapples with navigating intimacy and self-respect is eons more emotionally substantive. The town appears entirely white. One character is gay—an important plot point treated with subtlety. A noncogent grandmother and alcoholic father add a layer that doesn’t detract from the coming-of-age perspective. One neatly tied plot point after another at the end feels a little crowded compared to the preceding pace but shouldn’t deter readers.
A slice-of-life glimpse at a boy trying to mean something in the universe. (Realistic fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1952-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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