Gut-punching: This is essential reading.
War through the eyes of a 12-year-old Ukrainian girl.
Early one morning in February 2022, Russia begins bombing Mariupol, Ukraine, separating Dariia and her mother, who are away from their apartment, where Dariia’s father and twin sister Rada are. They find an overcrowded basement without adequate food, water, or sanitation and hunker down with others who are in need of shelter. As the city continues to be bombed week after week, survival becomes a daily struggle, but Dariia finds comfort in the company of other children, including classmate Natalia, who’s a close friend of Rada’s, and two boys named Rustem and Asan. When a direct hit kills most of the people in the basement, Dariia, her mother, and Rustem are among those who manage to escape—only to be captured at gunpoint by Russian soldiers. The children are separated and transported to a Russian camp to be cleaned up and adopted out to Russian families. Skrypuch presents the Russian propaganda that they are “rescuing” the kidnapped children from the “Nazi regime of Zelensky” in all its absurdity. Writing in searing detail from Dariia’s point of view, the author is explicit in her portrayal of the horrors of war, depicting scenes of violence, murder, racism, and destruction. This story of innocent civilians—especially children—finding the resilience to survive in a war that, at the time of this review, is still ongoing will be eye-opening for readers.
Gut-punching: This is essential reading. (author’s note, additional context) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781546104537
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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PROFILES
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
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