by M. Quint ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2015
A quirky, fast-moving sea odyssey with a diverse and well-realized cast.
Six students at a San Francisco middle school for misfits become an unlikely crew of seafarers after a disaster.
The adventure begins on a field trip to a historic ship called the Defiant. The sky lights up with lightning bolts and a flash of pink, destroying San Francisco as we know it. This seemingly supernatural event sends the students, sans adults, to sea. Gabriel, who lives in a group home, and Esme, who has been living with a neglectful aunt, become de facto group leaders, but as the group learns to fish, sail, stand lookout, and otherwise take care of one another, a palpable sense of family develops. Their journey brings them into contact with several other newly formed groups of kids (whatever the pink flashes were, no adults survived them) ranging in character from an exaggeratedly egalitarian society that would starve before ending a meeting to a group of science award–winners who would rather communicate on Bluetooth-like devices than talk face to face. The pink flashes are never explained, and the ending offers only a little resolution, but the heart of the story is the crew, a diverse group whose interactions and dialogue are sharply insightful and often comic, each of whom grows up appreciably as the story unfolds.
A quirky, fast-moving sea odyssey with a diverse and well-realized cast. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-936365-54-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: McSweeney’s
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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by Marie Lu ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 29, 2011
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes
A gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.
Fifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. She looks forward to the day when she can join up and fight the Republic’s treacherous enemies east of the Dakotas. Day, on the other hand, is an anonymous street rat, a slum child who failed his own Trial. He's also the Republic's most wanted criminal, prone to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When tragedies strike both their families, the two brilliant teens are thrown into direct opposition. In alternating first-person narratives, Day and June experience coming-of-age adventures in the midst of spying, theft and daredevil combat. Their voices are distinct and richly drawn, from Day’s self-deprecating affection for others to June's Holmesian attention to detail. All the flavor of a post-apocalyptic setting—plagues, class warfare, maniacal soldiers—escalates to greater complexity while leaving space for further worldbuilding in the sequel.
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes . (Science fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Jack Gantos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2011
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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