It is far beyond the emotional understanding of the usual picture-book audience and ultimately without substance or purpose...
"March to the beat of your own drummer and never look back," appears to be the theme of this picture book for teens.
Thomas resents and defies family, teachers and peers, whether they are asking him to keep clean, do his homework or show respect. He hides behind his headphones as they deliver accusations and predict his failure, but he offers nothing as an alternative. He interprets cultural pressures that urge him to join the military or to vote or to embrace religion as demands to “do as we say, think like us, be like us.” This mantra appears frequently, sometimes shouting at readers in large bold letters and sometimes hiding in gray beneath other text. Gleeson’s spare, terse syntax is woven within and around Greder’s stark, rather vicious, gray-and-black illustrations that variously fill the pages or are scattered in panels. Thomas is depicted only in the final pages, drawn in lightly colored hues, first surrounded by childhood toys and last seen heading for a bus, presumably leaving home with destination and future unknown. All of this is way beyond teenage angst or even a search for one’s passion or raison d’etre. The overall mood of the piece is one of intense, unremitting anger.
It is far beyond the emotional understanding of the usual picture-book audience and ultimately without substance or purpose for older readers. Dark, bitter and disturbing. (Picture book. 13 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-74237-333-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Things lost, things found, and their seekers are at the center of this novel about a girl’s prolonged mourning for her mother. In the wake of the sudden death of her mother, Sammy finds that her only consolation has been her best friend Bones, who shares with her the hope that their endless digging in their neighbors’ yards and the surrounding countryside will lead them to a magic discovery. Then Sammy’s long-absent Aunt Constance, her mother’s sister, comes for a visit. She is a real “finder,” sought out by others who have lost people and need comfort, answers, or both. In spite of that gift, Aunt Constance is unhappy; she is hounded by people who need her, and has no real home of her own. Worse, she has never been able to locate the one thing that means anything to her, the top half of a photograph of Sammy’s mother that has been placed in a threadbare pink satin jewelry box, which has been hidden. Sammy, anxious to locate anything that was her mother’s, quietly joins the search and succeeds, coming to terms with her loss and seeing that she has a real future, her own way. This tender and touching story of love, loss, and rediscovery is strongly plotted and poetically told, but the characters make it count; every one of them is someone readers will want to meet again. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32678-5
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
Carrick (Melanie, 1996, etc.) sensitively explores the pain of a parent’s death through the eyes, feelings, and voice of a nine-year-old boy whose world turns upside down when his father becomes terminally ill with cancer. Through a fictional reminiscence, the story explores many of the issues common to children whose parents are ill—loss of control, changes in physical appearance and mental ability, upsets in daily routine, experiences of guilt and anger, the reaction of friends, and, most of all, a fear of the unknown. Although the book suffers from a pat ending and the black-and-white sketches emphasize the bleakness of the topic, this title is a notch above pure bibliotherapy and will fill a special niche for children struggling to deal with the trauma of parental sickness and death. (Fiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-84151-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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