A restless 13-year-old searches for her destiny, and finds a cougar. Isabel (Izzie) Ramirez feels that the beginning of summer brings with it an indefinable sense of promise. To fulfill that promise, she decides to pursue an “entrepreneurial endeavor”—starting her own yard-work business. (“Money is power,” her university-bound cousin Arturo tells her.) Her first client is a wealthy woman who lives up in the hills above Oakland, abutting a regional park. Izzie forms an uneasy relationship with her son Charles and his friend Sam as they lounge around the pool while she works, and when she overhears what she thinks is a plan to kill a cougar rumored to have established its territory in the park, she determines to stop them. Bledsoe (Working Parts, 1997, etc.) creates a winning protagonist in Izzie, whose keen observations, occasionally awkward outspokenness, and independence will appeal to readers, and whose extended family is a real treat. The text gently explores socioeconomic divisions between Izzie’s family and her clients, and in one hilarious incident busts stereotypes when she gets her cousins to dress as gang members to menace Sam after he makes one too many racist remarks. The secondary characters are not as well developed as Izzie—in particular, Sam’s obvious compassion for animals jars with his thoroughly annoying demeanor towards Izzie—but for the most part they emerge as genuine human beings. If some of the story’s themes are rather incompletely explored—is money power?—it is nevertheless a perfectly satisfying read that provocatively probes the nature of destiny. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2002
ISBN: 0-8234-1599-6
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2001
Unfolding with the clarity of a fairy tale, this sure-footed debut casts a delightfully spooky spell.
Targeted in a wicked scheme, five resourceful kids flee their orphanage in 1892 Amsterdam.
Each longs to be adopted, but would-be parents reject them when they see the kids’ atypical attributes: Lotta’s 12 fingers, Egg’s East Asian ancestry (other characters default to white), Fenna’s muteness, clumsy Sem’s ears, and Milou’s wild ferocity. That is, until sinister Meneer Rotman sees their remarkable gifts—but Milou’s special sense warns her that Rotman’s evil. Indeed: They discover he intends to buy them as slave labor to crew his ship. Milou, who keeps a Book of Theories regarding why her birth family hasn’t claimed her, persuades them to escape to the puppet-making Poppenmaker family she’s sure she belongs to. Loyal if not convinced, the others join her. Lotta’s math and Egg’s cartographic acumen help them follow coordinates on Milou’s mysterious timepiece to the Poppenmakers’ windmill home and puppet theater, now abandoned. Thanks to Lotta’s technical ingenuity, Egg’s artistry, Fenna’s culinary prowess, and Sem’s needlework—assisted by clockmaker and dike warden Edda Finkelstein—it’s almost home. Then Milou forgets the other orphans have family longings, and the orphans discover Rotman has not forgotten them….While the vivid, Dickensian setting—grim orphanage, icy mists, and shadowy dockyards—and quaint clockwork creations and life-size puppets spin a web of Gothic creepiness, the bonds among this found family of lively orphans add plenty of warmth and light.
Unfolding with the clarity of a fairy tale, this sure-footed debut casts a delightfully spooky spell. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11693-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A story in which themes and historical information outshine the character development.
An orphan leaves her oppressive orphanage’s squalor and struggles to keep her place at a girls’ school in 1904 London.
Lainey Philipps’ intellectual curiosity, born from her voracious reading habits, garners the attention of Lady Anne Blunt, who offers her a place at Lovelace Academy. Lainey, whose mother was Jewish, loves the academics but is ostracized and belittled by her posh classmates. After her roommate’s lies threaten her enrollment, Lainey learns of the Lovelace Society, a secret group that supports women scientists. The members have a file on scientist Mileva Einstein (co-author Benedict also wrote 2016’s The Other Einstein). Lainey believes that if she can help Mileva with her research, she won’t be expelled. With resources borrowed from a friend, she makes her way across Europe to the Einsteins’ residence in Switzerland. Unexpected obstacles provide conflict during her journey as she encounters classism and the consequences of mistaken impressions; side characters in this story arc display more nuance. Occasionally, the authors toss out heavy-handed moral messages and canned platitudes that clash with the bleaker look at conditions at the time for orphans, women, and other minorities (such as Lainey’s friend with dyslexia and a character who’s from an unspecified nomadic people). Refreshingly, the text doesn’t elevate cerebral pursuits over caretaking in its message of equality—emotional bonds and shared support are shown to aid in academic advancement—but, disappointingly, the secret-society plot fizzles out.
A story in which themes and historical information outshine the character development. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781665950213
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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