The characters’ unhappiness and hopes will resonate with many readers.
Three middle school girls, loosely connected by their various roles in a school bullying incident, narrate the stories of their lives.
Krista stops attending school and develops a dangerous addiction to diet pills after mean-girl Chelsea posts unflattering photos of Krista around their school. Frustrated by the school’s lack of visible advocacy for Krista, her sole friend, Tessa, creates a series of posters that highlight Krista’s talents—and her absence. Tessa’s campaign successfully engages the school community, providing Krista with much-needed support. Interspersed with the scenes related to bullying are explorations of each girl’s life outside of school: Krista and her father’s reliance on fast food while her mother works, Tessa’s grief over her father’s death during military service in Afghanistan, and Chelsea’s involvement with an abusive drug dealer in an attempt to fill the emotional void created by her selfish mother. Unfortunately, these girls sometimes feel like stock characters, but they do so only because they so accurately represent the reality of many teens’ lives. Middle school readers, in particular, will connect with multiple moments in the story, which ultimately offers some hope that Krista will recover with support from friends and health professionals. Chelsea’s fate is much darker and includes a frightening scene suggesting she is being sexually exploited by the drug dealer.
The characters’ unhappiness and hopes will resonate with many readers. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4594-0509-7
Page Count: 162
Publisher: James Lorimer
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
Each book in the high-interest/low-reading-level Surviving Southside series is narrated by a different student at Texas' racially diverse Southside High School. Here, Benito's dad comes home from the war in Iraq. The family has been looking forward to his return, but he now has PTSD and is prone to loud, embarrassing outbursts. Ultimately, Benito leaves the house on an ill-fated bus journey. Plan B, in which a drunken first sexual experience leads to an unplanned pregnancy, tells a familiar story but comes to an open-ended resolution. In Recruited, star quarterback Kadeem faces a moral dilemma: Accept the scholarships, academic string-pulling and cheerleaders' attention offered by Teller College's recruiting coach, or blow the whistle on Teller's illegal recruiting practices. Each book is straightforward, with action beginning immediately and every detail moving the story ahead. Resolutions come quickly (each volume hovers just around 100 pages) and are sometimes unsatisfyingly tidy. Occasionally, a relevant detail is left out—it is never explained, for instance, why NCAA recruiting rules forbid aggressive tactics—but overall, these are solid, simple stories. For reluctant readers and fans of the Bluford High series. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7613-6165-7
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Darby Creek
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
In a noir caper with racial overtones, the Big Bad Wolf’s son escapes from juvie and uncovers an ugly corporate plot to corner the fairy-dust market. With all the fairies suddenly gone from the floating city of Eden, the only magic left to the evolved wolves, dwarves, goblins, cats, elves and foxes in the earthbound city below comes in adulterated form from the dust mines of human-owned Nimbus Thaumaturgical (“Better Living Through Enchantment”) or illegally through the nixie mob. Determined to find out what really happened to the fairies, Henry Whelp becomes a nixiedust runner and discovers horrors both below ground and in the aerial realm—capped by the revelation of a genocidal scheme to develop a bad dust that will cause all of the “animalia” species to revert to their bestial originals. There's only a glimmer of hope that some fairies survive, but with plenty of help from an attractive lupine photojournalist and a sack of very special beans passed on by a human thief named Jack, Henry takes on the foes of multispecies amity. Weston deftly tucks his fairy-tale tropes into this thought-provoking mystery. (Fantasy/mystery. 11-13)
Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59514-296-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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