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LAKE OF SECRETS

Name: LAKE OF SECRETS
Author: Lael Littke
ISBN: 0-8050-6730-2

by Lael Littke ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

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Past lives, small-town secrets, and the unsolved disappearance of a four-year-old all come together in Littke’s readable, but uneven novel. Fifteen-year-old Carlene and her mother have returned to the small town where Carlene’s little brother disappeared 18 years earlier. Although Keith vanished before Carlene was born, she has lived with the consequences of the tragedy: her mother’s bottomless grief and the resulting breakup of the marriage and loss of her father. The discovery of a child’s clothing in an old mine brings her mother back to the scene of the crime and she is driven to find out what happened to her son once and for all. The town seems to be caught in a time warp: the same people are there, doing the same things they were doing at the time of the tragedy. Almost immediately, Carlene begins “remembering” events that happened in the town, things she clearly could not have been privy to. She begins to think she may be experiencing memories from a past life that somehow link her to Keith’s disappearance. While this plot line has the potential to be hokey, Littke pulls it off until the final chapters, when a past-life regression goes bad and the events surrounding Keith’s vanishing and subsequent death are replayed with the same key players involved all over again. Until then, the story was fairly believable. The handful of main characters are well developed, the small town has just enough eccentrics to keep things interesting, and Carlene is a well-rounded, typical teenager, alternately despising her mother for making her leave her friends and feeling sorry for the immense loss to their family. Only partly successful. (Fiction. 12-15)

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-8050-6730-2

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2002

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
HAUNTED SISTER
by Lael Littke

- BOOK REVIEW
BLUE SKYE
by Lael Littke

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THE AMAH

by Laurence Yep ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1999

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Revisiting characters from The Cook’s Family (1998), Yep again explores personal and cultural conflicts arising between the generations in a Chinese-American family. Suddenly saddled with caring for four younger siblings after a wealthy businessman hires her widowed mother as a governess—or amah—for his daughter, Stephanie, Amy Chin is forced to miss several ballet rehearsals for Cinderella, to listen to glowing accounts of Stephanie’s sophistication, and to accept expensive clothing and other gifts from her. While gaining new insight into how Cinderella’s stepsisters must have felt, Amy’s understandable resentment is compounded by the news that Stephanie will be moving in while her father is away on a trip. Yep builds that feeling to fever pitch, then dispels it by casting Stephanie as a lonely child hurt by one parent’s death and the other’s neglect; becoming friends, Stephanie and Amy clear the air and mend some fences with their well-meaning parents in a climactic face-off. The characters, most of them familiar from previous appearances, are distinct if not particularly complex, the San Francisco setting is vividly drawn, and the issues are laid out in plain terms and tidily resolved. It’s formulaic, but not entirely superficial. (Fiction. 10-13)

Pub Date: June 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-399-23040-8

Page Count: 184

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
A DRAGON'S GUIDE TO MAKING YOUR HUMAN SMARTER
by Laurence Yep & Joanne Ryder ; illustrated by Mary GrandPré

- BOOK REVIEW
A DRAGON'S GUIDE TO THE CARE AND FEEDING OF HUMANS
by Laurence Yep ; Joanne Ryder ; illustrated by Mary GrandPré

- BOOK REVIEW
CITY OF DEATH
by Laurence Yep

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OY, JOY!

by Lucy Frank ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

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A breezy middle-school romance from Frank (Will You Be My Brussels Sprout?, 1996, etc.). Not only does the level of domestic tension rise rapidly after her mother’s Uncle Max, recovering from a stroke, moves into the cramped Cooper apartment, but Joy suddenly finds herself on the outs with her best friend Maple, who has become joined at the hip to amateur musician Wade. Joy makes a new connection, too, due to some surreptitious matchmaking by Uncle Max: enter a friendly, eminently promising older schoolmate, also named Max. While this budding relationship is growing into full-scale delirium, Joy returns the favor by encouraging Uncle Max and his garrulous neighbor, Rose, to spend time together; by the end, Uncle Max follows Rose to her winter quarters in Florida, and offers to trade his roomy apartment for theirs. Cast with likable, well-meaning characters, driven more by cheers than tears, this tidily resolved New York City tale will please Frank’s fans, and send newcomers to her earlier books. (Fiction. 11-13)