An interesting and somewhat enlightening look at a girl struggling but sometimes making bumpy progress in dealing with...
An eighth-grader’s Asperger’s syndrome complicates her navigation of an unpredictable—and often inexplicable—world.
Kicked out of school after cracking a popular (and rather deserving) girl on the head with her lunch tray during one of her many anger-driven meltdowns, Kiara’s searching for a real friend. When 12-year-old Chad and his little brother move in across the street, it seems like the perfect opportunity. Chad is deceitful, but Kiara quickly discovers it’s mostly because his parents are using him to buy large quantities of Sudafed, an ingredient for their meth lab. She also explores a developing connection with Antonio, a friend of her older brother and someone who seems to understand her focus on Rogue, one of the X-Men, whom she views as a comforting alter ego. Whether Antonio’s just being friendly or trying to exploit her innocence is never clear, but his attractiveness lands her and Chad at a high school drinking party. With her back-up–singer mother performing in Canada and her father not really understanding her, Kiara has few adult resources, and her frustration with the world rings true in her first-person narration. Her meltdowns, unfortunately, come off more as tantrums than manifestations of her syndrome, making her a less-attractive character than she deserves to be.
An interesting and somewhat enlightening look at a girl struggling but sometimes making bumpy progress in dealing with Asperger’s. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: May 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-16225-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
Chilling, difficult, and definitely not for readers without a solid understanding of the Holocaust despite the relatively...
A young boy grows up in Adolf Hitler’s mountain home in Austria.
Seven-year-old Pierrot Fischer and his frail French mother live in Paris. His German father, a bitter ex-soldier, returned to Germany and died there. Pierrot’s best friend is Anshel Bronstein, a deaf Jewish boy. After his mother dies, he lives in an orphanage, until his aunt Beatrix sends for him to join her at the Berghof mountain retreat in Austria, where she is housekeeper for Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. It is here that he becomes ever more enthralled with Hitler and grows up, proudly wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth, treating others with great disdain, basking in his self-importance, and then committing a terrible act of betrayal against his aunt. He witnesses vicious acts against Jews, and he hears firsthand of plans for extermination camps. Yet at war’s end he maintains that he was only a child and didn’t really understand. An epilogue has him returning to Paris, where he finds Anshel and begins a kind of catharsis. Boyne includes real Nazi leaders and historical details in his relentless depiction of Pierrot’s inevitable corruption and self-delusion. As with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2006), readers both need to know what Pierrot disingenuously doesn’t and are expected to accept his extreme naiveté, his total lack of awareness and comprehension in spite of what is right in front of him.
Chilling, difficult, and definitely not for readers without a solid understanding of the Holocaust despite the relatively simple reading level. (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62779-030-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The sudden death of her twin leaves a teenager struggling with grief and her fragile sense of self in this absorbing, inwardly focused import from Sweden, part fiction, part memoir. So close are the sisters that after Cilla is killed by a motorist Tina can still hear her voice, still see her just by looking in a mirror, still hold conversations; she even finds herself taking on some of Cilla’s character traits, seeking an inner balance that she has lost. Able to describe her experiences only by switching back and forth between third person and first, Tina observes the different ways those around her grieve, and finds temporary solace in many places: reading and writing poetry, performing on stage, playing her violin, trying a brief but intense fling at summer camp, even talking to a perceptive psychologist—but unlike many such stories, there is never any sense here that the authors are running through a catalog of coping strategies, or offering trite platitudes. A year later, Tina discovers that, in forming new friendships and moving on in life, she has passed the worst of her pain, and found ways to distance herself from Cilla without losing her completely. In a smooth, natural-sounding translation, this is a thoughtful, complex reminiscence. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: March 23, 1999
ISBN: 91-29-63935-2
Page Count: 247
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
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