A mousy fourth grader demonstrates both courage and compassion in this undisguised consciousness-raiser. Keely takes a major step toward independence when she refuses clique-leader Stef’s command to tug at classmate Anya’s hair to see if it’s a wig. In fact, it is; Anya has lost her hair not to chemotherapy, as her horrified peers automatically assume, but to alopecia areata, an uncommon, non-life-threatening immune system disorder. Haddix (Among the Betrayed, p. 733, etc.) switches points of view between Anya and Keely to show one child convulsed with shame and fear of discovery, and another who is first horrified at the prospect that someone she knows might die. Then, after the truth comes out in the wake of an emotionally devastating public accident, Keely’s resolved to find the right way to show support—something at which Anya’s own hand-wringing parents aren’t doing too well. The characters are definitely modeling good and bad behavior here, but Keely’s urge to help comes from basic decency rather than ego. And though she speaks with unlikely eloquence at the climax, what she says—and later does, with a donation of her own hair—realistically works no instant cure, but does plant seeds that soon enough flower into acceptance, both in Anya and in her classmates. The author’s sympathetic but not simplistic insight will engage readers who might find the picture book Princess Alopecia by Yaacov Peterseil (1999) too cutesy. An afterword furnishes additional information, plus addresses and Web sites. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-83298-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A Brooklyn teenager’s summer plans take an unwelcome turn when her mother sends her away for a year in this chatty, fluent tale, a real change of pace from Chambers’s angry, brutal memoir, Mama’s Girl (1996). Marisol and Magdalena, inseparable since birth, look forward to a delicious summer followed by a triumphant tour through their last year in junior high. It’s not to be; despite pleas and tears, Marisol finds herself on a plane to Panama City when her mother decides to attend nursing school full-time. Born in the US, Marisol knows her mother’s homeland only through stories and old photographs; her initial apprehension evaporates in the warm welcome she receives from her abuela, and in her instant acceptance at school. Both in Brooklyn and in Panama, Marisol is rich in friends and relatives, all (but for one hostile cousin) loving and supportive; with the help of Ana, a neighbor, and RubÇn, her first boyfriend, she loses her initial shyness as quickly as she improves her shaky Spanish. Magda remains a part-time character, and some subplots—notably, Marisol’s carefully developed but suddenly abandoned determination to find her estranged father—are left hanging, but Marisol moves between her two cultures with ease, and her Panama is a sunnier place than the tense, divided country of Adele Griffin’s Rainy Season (1996). (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-7868-0437-8
Page Count: 141
Publisher: Disney-Jump at the Sun
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Looking for a place where he and his cat can stay, a Seattle boy treks to San Francisco in this ingenuous cautionary adventure from Kehret (Small Steps, 1996, etc.). Behind in the rent, and with the car about to be repossessed, Spencer's mother decamps in the middle of the night, finding temporary refuge for herself and Spencer across town, at Aunt May's. She tells them that Spencer's cat, Foxey, has to go; desperate to keep him, Spencer forces him into a box and heads for San Francisco on a stolen bike, hoping to find his father. Kehret has an agenda, but she makes her points indirectly: Spencer experiences more discomfort than danger (although he is robbed by other runaways), and acts in ways he knows are wrong, from theft to hitchhiking. Foxey is far more troublesome than the hazards of the trip, and Spencer's efforts to keep his terrified pet from running off come close to mistreatment. They arrive in San Francisco by chance—retired carpenter, Hank Woodworth, pays Spencer's bus fare and takes Foxey in temporarily. Spencer finds his father, and Hank dies, leaving Spencer a college trust fund and ready cash for his mother. It's a distressingly tidy resolution, but Spencer's impulsive escapade may give readers infatuated with the notion of running away some second thoughts. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-525-65256-6
Page Count: 149
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1997
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