A thought-provoking study of a family caught up in both political and domestic crises in a foreign land.
Title notwithstanding, historical events in Ghana remain largely offstage as a 12-year-old, recently arrived from Canada, struggles to cope with her mother’s descent into a nervous breakdown.
Astrid’s father, invited to Accra to help organize a national election, is usually away at work. This leaves her to juggle school, two younger sibs, and a stay-at-home parent whose fear of the local food, water, wildlife and people has resulted in frantic overprotectiveness, irrationally strict rules about permissible activities and increasingly violent emotional outbursts. The domestic tension comes to a head when malaria strikes brother Gordo. Then, amid the widespread turmoil caused by Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings’ coup (this is 1979, as the historical note informs readers), a soldier robs Astrid’s mother at gunpoint. Otherwise, the violence and unrest are conveyed here more through radio broadcasts and overheard conversations than direct experience. Jones focuses instead on Astrid’s courage, good sense and fundamental kindness in the face of her deteriorating mother’s mood swings and growing distraction, the frustration of being continually kept in the dark by adults about what’s going on in the larger world and the overwhelming responsibility of caring for her brother and sister. Along with hearing her Ghanaian friends’ conflicting feelings about their new government, Astrid weathers her challenges at home admirably.
A thought-provoking study of a family caught up in both political and domestic crises in a foreign land. (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4598-0481-4
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Readers will really feel blasts of wind, water and flying debris in this disaster tale—at least until the narrative cuts off in mid-howl. As (fictional) Hurricane Emily moves toward Florida and his father, an itinerant contractor specializing in weather-disaster prep and repairs, heads for its expected landfall, Chase takes up temporary residence at a “farm” that turns out to be a circus’ winter quarters. Hardly has he reported to the local school, though, than the storm makes a sudden turn and surge that strands him, along with classmates Nicole and Rashawn, in a wrecked bus on a crumbling levee. Writing in clipped prose and dialogue, Smith quickly plunges the three refugees into a desperate struggle to survive floods, darkness, howling gales and even an encounter with a wily alligator on the way to what they hope will be safety. Though the author’s practice of repeatedly cutting away to other characters’ points of view distracts from rather than tightens the suspense, and he abruptly chops off the narrative on a cliffhanger as the storm’s eye passes, Chase and his friends get repeated opportunities to show that they’re made of sturdy stuff. Since they are left sharing a barn with an elephant who is about to give birth as a vicious escaped leopard roams outside, readers are really going to want to find out what happens next. (Adventure. 11-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-08175-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
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