In a sequel to the poignant The Bears' House, about a deprived child who finds solace imagining being card for by bears in a dollhouse, two years have elapsed; the family has been separated and given over to foster care. Now, in August, they are reunited: Mama has pills to stave off depression; Fletcher, doing well in school, has a job; Florence, still mean, is into boys and nail polish; Fran Ellen (12) tries to reconstruct the old balance, but baby Flora has forgotten her, prefers Felice (7), and pines for her foster home. The Bears' House, which has been stored at the shelter, is battered; Goldilocks and the furniture are missing. It's a rough beginning. Mama is tense; Fran Ellen spurns the admiration of Felice, thinking her fat and stupid, trying to interest baby Flora in the dollhouse. But Flora is inconsolable; her weeping is too much for fragile Mama to contend with, and it's finally decided that she should return to her loving foster family. Fran Ellen is fiercely protective of the dollhouse, but Felice is the right age for it and persists with good ideas for it. By Christmas, the whole family has shared in its repair and Fran Ellen has warmed to Felice, who has become, with her happy concurrence, the house's prime caretaker. More ordinary than the stunning earlier book, but a worthy sequel nonetheless. Fran Ellen's first-person, present-tense narrative is appealing in its immediacy and unsentimental realism. Standing well alone, the book will surely be welcomed by readers of The Bears' House.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1987
ISBN: 0140385533
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1987
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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