This collection of 13 short stories about faith will strike a chord in teens still trying to make sense of violence carried out in the name of Allah toward Americans, yet it isn’t meant to be a reaction to 9/11. Conceived years before that tragedy, it brings together both veteran and fresh voices of YA literature and a mélange of world religions and beliefs, including Native American and Amish. It’s also not about becoming saved or finding God or Buddha or any other higher being. Rather it shows the universal need to feel connected to family, friends, and humanity. In Minfong Ho’s “The See-Far Glasses,” for example, Ling, who never really understood her grandmother’s family altar, an outgrowth of Confucian tenets, learns to value this communication with her ancestors when her grandmother dies. These stories may also clarify religious principles as in Elsa Marston’s “The Olive Grove” in which Muslim Mujahhid, having seen his brother and best friend killed by Israelis, discovers his own jihad, to struggle peacefully for his family’s rights in the midst of chaos and war. Conversely, Dian Curtis Regan’s frightening “The Evil Eye,” based on an actual Venezuelan cult, shows an organized faith in the hands of evildoers. The final story, Fraustino’s “The Tin Man,” in which patients of varying ages, sizes, and religions wait their turn for a new heart transplant, sums up the main theme expressed throughout: although faith comes with more questions than answers, life is richer and more meaningful for those who ask those difficult questions and who find guiding principles in something beyond themselves. Readers will find humor, pain, joy, and wonder in these honest, powerful stories—and hopefully tolerance, compassion, and their own questions about the world around them. (Short stories. YA)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-83484-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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