When 14-year-old Samantha Thomas moves to Jackson, Miss., in 1962, following her father’s death in Vietnam, she learns about love and hate all in the same year. Her mother meets Perry Walker, a photographer who teaches Sam about taking photographs and seeing the world in new ways, but what she begins seeing and pondering is the racial situation in Jackson—lunch-counter sit-ins, voter-registration protests and the violent reprisals of many in the white community, including the father of the boy she begins to like. Though this fine volume easily stands by itself, McMullan links it with two previous works—How I Found the Strong (2004) and When I Crossed No-Bob (2007)—and readers who read the first installments will feel that they are in the midst of an excellent historical saga. A pivotal scene in the Petrified Forest relies too much on coincidence and an improbable sequence of events, but overall this offers a superb portrait of a place and time and a memorable character trying to make sense of a world both ugly and beautiful. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-547-07659-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2010
It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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