A sweet, positive tale about teen issues.
In this middle-grade novel, a 13-year-old girl explores her heritage and other mysteries.
It’s 1978, and River Wren is living on Sourland Mountain, a scenic area of New Jersey resplendent with gorgeous surroundings, artistic inspiration, and idyllic childhoods. The teenager engages in friendly competitions with her pals George and Joe to see who can finish a book series the fastest. While Joe grabs forbidden Elmore Leonard novels, River jams along to the songs of Beowulf’s Brother, her father’s band. When she sees an art exhibition celebrating the Lenni-Lenape tribe, from which she is descended on her father’s side, her curiosity is piqued. River has dark skin and hair like her father, while her mother, a professional crafter, and younger sibling resemble the family’s Irish side, with pale skin and red hair. Unfortunately, River’s otherwise supportive dad isn’t much help. He’s estranged from his one sibling and is reluctant to talk about his own connections to his Native roots. Meanwhile, River’s 9-year-old sister, Savannah, keeps going off on her own—but to where? And George’s mother is experiencing extreme mood swings—but why? There’s only one solution: River, Joe, and George form The Three Detectives Club to get to the bottom of things. But as the trio will soon learn, there are no easy answers in life—although supportive families and friends make everything a little more beautiful. This novel is the third installment of McGlothlin’s Sourland Mountain series, though it can easily be read as a stand-alone. The mountain provides a lovely scene—there’s even an illustrated map at the beginning of the book—and almost becomes a key character. The author deftly handles complex issues, like cultural background and mental health, in a gentle but realistic manner. River is an intelligent and thoughtful hero, wanting to know more about the world around her in a way that’s consistent with a young teen. But at times, River and her friends seem a bit younger than 13: Wanting to solve mysteries is age appropriate, but forming a club to do so is slightly childish.
A sweet, positive tale about teen issues.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-7332865-2-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: Sourland Mountain Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
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