The sentence-level writing is good, but the plot doesn’t hold.
A nearly-12-year-old British boy waits for the return of his missing mother.
Nate’s mother wakes him in the night and bundles him into a rental car, saying that they’re going on holiday to a cottage where they’d stayed long before. Nate barely remembers the tumbledown place, a gardener’s cottage on the outskirts of a large estate, now fallen into ruin, but he’s grateful to escape his divorced mother’s abusive live-in boyfriend, Gary. But the next afternoon, Nate’s mum goes to get groceries and doesn’t come back. Nate’s only briefly alone—he’s soon visited by Sam, his imaginary friend from toddlerhood, and then Kitty, a girl about his age who claims to be the daughter of the estate house’s current owner. Kitty brings Nate food and accepts his explanations as to his parents’ whereabouts. Meanwhile Sam and Nate have long conversations about the fates of imaginary friends. Told from Nate’s point of view, the story is frankly implausible—Nate worries that his mum has returned to Gary but never goes in search of her or does anything to help his own situation, making him feel younger and less resourceful than 12. His relationship with his father is glossed over, and Gary never feels realistically threatening. Nor does the imaginary-friend angle generate much interest. The book adheres to the white default.
The sentence-level writing is good, but the plot doesn’t hold. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-21630-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
A fine emotional stretch within reach of the intended audience.
When siblings Jessie and Evan (The Lemonade War, 2007, and The Lemonade Crime, 2011) accompany their mother on the time-honored midwinter holiday visit to their grandmother’s home in the mountains, the changes are alarming.
Fire damage to the house and Grandma’s inability to recognize Evan are as disquieting as the disappearance of the iron bell, hung long ago by their grandmother on Lowell Hill and traditionally rung at the New Year. Davies keeps a tight focus on the children: Points of view switch between Evan, with his empathetic and emotional approach to understanding his world, and Jessie, for whom routine is essential and change a puzzle to be worked out. When Grandma ventures out into the snow just before twilight, it is Evan who realizes the danger and manages to find a way to rescue her. Jessie, determined to solve the mystery of the missing bell, enlists the help of Grandma's young neighbor Maxwell, with his unusual habitual gestures and his surprising ability to solve jigsaw puzzles. She is unprepared, however, for the terror of seeing the neighbor boys preparing a mechanical torture device to tear a live frog to pieces. Each of the siblings brings a personal resilience and heroism to the resolution.
A fine emotional stretch within reach of the intended audience. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-56737-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
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An insightful, action-packed, and thought-provoking adventure.
In a dystopian future ravaged by climate change, a 12-year-old tech genius must save her community from an evil government.
Raised on her family’s strawberry farm in the Valley, Yolanda Cicerón, who has Cuban roots, aspires to become a neurolink surgeon, install computer chips in human skulls, and live in Silo, the most developed city around. But Camila, Yoly’s older sister and her guardian since their parents’ exile, can’t afford the tuition. After Yoly secretly accepts a scholarship from Silo’s Mayor Blackburn to fund her studies—against Cami’s explicit wishes—she realizes the scholarship’s terms require her to go on Retreat, a life-threatening mission in territory plagued by extreme weather disasters. Terrified, Cami finally shares secret family history that explains her mistrust of the mayor. Yoly belatedly understands that the System that purportedly keeps everyone safe from nature is actually oppressive and is spying on them. Looking for a way to pay off the scholarship and avoid the Retreat, Yoly and Cami discover a honeybee colony on their farm and recognize that the bees can pollinate fields and thereby reduce people’s dependence on Silo. But questioning and innovation are dangerous under an authoritarian regime, and when people dear to Yoly are taken away, she must fight to save them and bring down the whole corrupt System. Readers will root for Yoly, who is as kind and brave as she is smart, in this page-turning story that deals with all-too-relevant themes.
An insightful, action-packed, and thought-provoking adventure. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-300655-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
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BOOK REVIEW
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