Another memorable preacher’s child steps on to the stage in this promising debut. The time: the second half of 1957. The place: a small town in rural South Carolina. Josephine Clawson is dreading yet another first Sunday in a new parish. She is not by any definition a model child, but one who—thoughtful, loving, and honest—would be quite comfortable in the company of Suzanne Newton’s Neal Sloan (I Will Call It Georgie’s Blues, 1983) or Kate DiCamillo’s Opal (Because of Winn-Dixie, 2000). The Clawson family has moved from Illinois to Jericho, Josephine’s father’s hometown, where he’s accepted a call to the ministry. For Josephine, the adjustment is very difficult. In addition to the normal problems faced by any girl of her age, like trying to fit in and make friends in a new town, she must face her own personal demons. She lies in an attempt to become popular and struggles with internal and external pressures to conform. She also faces the confusion and conflicts posed by the times and culture, including Jim Crow laws and strict constraints imposed on females. And she senses, but doesn’t fully understand, newly arisen tensions between her parents. Plot elements are framed by the turmoil caused by the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock. Josephine sees and is outraged by the injustices of segregation and finally begins to base her behavior on her sense of justice and moral standards. The story’s climax is realistic, providing neither pat answers nor simplistic resolutions, but making it clear that actions based on moral choices may have unpredictable outcomes. As with the best historical fiction, this breathes life into an important era in US history. It will give youthful readers information on a level deeper than that offered by mere dates and facts and will lend itself to discussion. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6521-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
Curtis debuts with a ten-year-old's lively account of his teenaged brother's ups and downs. Ken tries to make brother Byron out to be a real juvenile delinquent, but he comes across as more of a comic figure: getting stuck to the car when he kisses his image in a frozen side mirror, terrorized by his mother when she catches him playing with matches in the bathroom, earning a shaved head by coming home with a conk. In between, he defends Ken from a bully and buries a bird he kills by accident. Nonetheless, his parents decide that only a long stay with tough Grandma Sands will turn him around, so they all motor from Michigan to Alabama, arriving in time to witness the infamous September bombing of a Sunday school. Ken is funny and intelligent, but he gives readers a clearer sense of Byron's character than his own and seems strangely unaffected by his isolation and harassment (for his odd look—he has a lazy eye—and high reading level) at school. Curtis tries to shoehorn in more characters and subplots than the story will comfortably bear—as do many first novelists—but he creates a well-knit family and a narrator with a distinct, believable voice. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-32175-9
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-7868-2427-1 The content and concerns of Levy’s latest is at odds with the young reading level and large type size, which may prevent this novel’s natural audience of middle schoolers from finding a fast and funny read. In sixth grade, Rebecca broke her friend Scott’s toe at a dance. Now, in seventh grade, they are partners in a ballroom dance class, and they soon find they dance well together, but that makes Rebecca’s friend Samantha jealous. She gives a party during which spin-the-bottle is played, kissing Scott and then bullying him into being her boyfriend. While Rebecca deals with her mixed feelings about all this, she also has a crush on her dance instructor. Levy (My Life as a Fifth-Grade Comedian, 1997, etc.) has great comedic timing and writes with a depth of feeling to make early adolescent romantic travails engaging; she also comes through on the equally difficult feat of making ballroom dancing appealing to young teens. The obsession with kissing, pre-sexual tension, and sensuality of the dancing will be off-putting or engrossing, depending entirely on readers’ comfort levels with such conversations in real life as well as on the page. Precocious preteens will find that this humorously empathetic take on budding romance is just right. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7868-0498-X
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
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