This fictional diary of an eighth-grader is frighteningly realistic—and all too relevant. In Judi Leibowitz, Newman (Eating Our Hearts Out, 1993, etc.) has created a character who speaks for girls who are unhappy with their bodies, who diet obsessively from a very young age, and who often hurt themselves, physically and emotionally, in their quest for ``the perfect body.'' Like most of these girls, Judi has a completely normal figure but imagines herself to be obese. Nearly every entry of the diary she is keeping as an assignment for English is about her weight. Since the book is entirely from Judi's perspective, the reader only discovers that Judi is not fat from occasional hints—like when a classmate draws a picture and Judi doesn't recognize herself because she doesn't ``look fat at all.'' The girl Judi idolizes, Nancy Pratt, is eventually hospitalized for her bulimia, and Judi herself experiments with purging and laxatives when her dieting proves ineffectual. Judi disgusts herself, but she is powerless to stop her obsessive behavior until she shows her diary to her mother, who helps her get counseling. With Kate Moss's bony hips sticking out of billboards and magazines everywhere, girls can't hear enough about how attractive and normal their own bodies are. Kudos to Newman. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 19, 1994
ISBN: 0-399-22760-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
A young man who unwittingly helps a punk steal an elderly couple’s television in the first story sets the somewhat uneasy tone for this collection. While glimpses of Soto’s characteristic humor and charm appear in later stories, many of these tales focus on less-than-comfortable events and experiences. There’s a girl whose tattooed and pierced babysitter dyes her younger brother’s hair orange and green, a fact sure to enrage their mom when she eventually finds out; a child who is achingly aware of the enmity of anti-war protesters and simultaneously proud of her immigrant parents’ efforts to improve their lives; and a sad young boy whose painfully polite parents have frozen him out of the family without apparently meaning to do so. Each situation is distinct, clearly drawn and immediate. Soto presents his characters with sometimes insurmountable challenges, but he limns their lives with such vivid descriptions and insights that readers will be left wondering how things work out—and wishing for the best. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-206181-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
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