Though the plot is built around coincidence, the lively characters and a well-drawn setting rescue it; presumably the many...
Yep (The Khan's Daughter, p. 68, etc.) launches the Chinatown Mystery series, set in modern San Francisco's Chinatown.
Hired to design a float for the Chinese New Year parade, the colorful character actress Tiger Lil sweeps up from Beverly Hills, overawing her 12-year-old namesake, called Lily, with the force of her personality and exaggerated tales of classic stars and movies. Despite a recent rash of gang robberies, prominent landlord H.T. Wong and his wife allow their daughter to wear a fabulously valuable pearl necklace in the parade; though the masked thief who snatches it eludes Lil and young Lily, a series of clues and encounters soon leads the two sleuths to Happy Fortune, a sweatshop owned by none other than the Wongs. Along the way, young Lily (and readers) learn that Chinese culture and language are not monolithic, but full of regional and class variations; Yep also tucks an indictment of sweatshop practices into the story—to the extent that readers are likely to feel satisfaction when, at the end, Tiger Lil palms one of the recovered pearls for the exploited sweatshop workers to sell.
Though the plot is built around coincidence, the lively characters and a well-drawn setting rescue it; presumably the many dangling threads will be sewn into future episodes. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 31, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-024444-5
Page Count: 179
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The magic of reading is given a refreshingly real twist.
This is the way Pearl’s world ends: not with a bang but with a scream.
Pearl Moran was born in the Lancaster Avenue branch library and considers it more her home than the apartment she shares with her mother, the circulation librarian. When the head of the library’s beloved statue of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay is found to be missing, Pearl’s scream brings the entire neighborhood running. Thus ensues an enchanting plunge into the underbelly of a failing library and a city brimful of secrets. With the help of friends old, uncertainly developing, and new, Pearl must spin story after compelling story in hopes of saving what she loves most. Indeed, that love—of libraries, of books, and most of all of stories—suffuses the entire narrative. Literary references are peppered throughout (clarified with somewhat superfluous footnotes) in addition to a variety of tangential sidebars (the identity of whose writer becomes delightfully clear later on). Pearl is an odd but genuine narrator, possessed of a complex and emotional inner voice warring with a stridently stubborn outer one. An array of endearing supporting characters, coupled with a plot both grounded in stressful reality and uplifted by urban fantasy, lend the story its charm. Both the neighborhood and the library staff are robustly diverse. Pearl herself is biracial; her “long-gone father” was black and her mother is white. Bagley’s spot illustrations both reinforce this and add gentle humor.
The magic of reading is given a refreshingly real twist. (reading list) (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6952-1
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Resembling a Golden Age comic without the pictures, this tale pits a group of small-town children with superpowers—call them “preteen titans”—against a shadowy menace that robs them of those powers on their 13th birthdays. Coming to town with his family to care for his dying grandma, Daniel quickly spots his neighbor Mollie and her friends performing incredible feats. Soon he’s in their confidence, as they demonstrate combinations of super-speed, super-strength, enhanced senses and the ability to turn invisible. All of them can also hear the clock ticking, however. Gifted not with superpowers but a sharp mind and a fondness for Sherlock Holmes stories, Daniel sets out to discover how and why his new friends, like generations of their predecessors, are being robbed of their abilities. Where those abilities come from never enters in, but the obligatory wily supervillain does, leading to a titanic climactic battle. Cody wears his influences on his sleeve, but has some fun with them (one lad’s “power” is a super-stench) and crafts a tribute that, unlike M.T. Anderson’s Whales On Stilts (2005), is more admiring than silly. (Fantasy. 10-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85595-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2009
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