Yep (Hiroshima, p. 642, etc.) creates an elegant tale of love and understanding with an upbeat resolution that will please...
Her demanding ballet teacher believes that Robin Lee has real talent, but it's unlikely that she'll be able to develop it soon.
Every penny her family can scrape up has to be saved to bring Robin's grandmother from China to the US—an obligation that Robin's mother sees as almost sacred—so Robin's lessons are scrapped. When the crotchety old woman arrives, she quickly establishes herself as the center of the Lees' universe. A frustrated Robin dutifully practices her ballet exercises on her own in the garage, but the combination of ballet shoes that have grown too small and a lack of formal instruction results in little progress and increasingly deformed feet. Her anger builds until the day she finds her grandmother soaking her hideously misshapen feet, which were bound in her youth. The sight sobers and humbles Robin utterly and marks the beginning of a touching and beautiful bond between the old woman and the young one.
Yep (Hiroshima, p. 642, etc.) creates an elegant tale of love and understanding with an upbeat resolution that will please the most demanding readers. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 19, 1996
ISBN: 0-399-22906-X
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
Illegal immigrant sisters learn a lot about themselves when their family faces deportation in this compelling contemporary drama. Immigrants from Bangladesh, Nadira, her older sister Aisha and their parents live in New York City with expired visas. Fourteen-year-old Nadira describes herself as “the slow-wit second-born” who follows Aisha, the family star who’s on track for class valedictorian and a top-rate college. Everything changes when post-9/11 government crack-downs on Muslim immigrants push the family to seek asylum in Canada where they are turned away at the border and their father is arrested by U.S. immigration. The sisters return to New York living in constant fear of detection and trying to pretend everything is normal. As months pass, Aisha falls apart while Nadira uses her head in “a right way” to save her father and her family. Nadira’s need for acceptance by her family neatly parallels the family’s desire for acceptance in their adopted country. A perceptive peek into the lives of foreigners on the fringe. (endnote) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4169-0351-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Ginee Seo/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
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