A novel that offers some valuable life lessons for teens, although its story and characters often feel like window dressing.
A didactic novel about a teen who has trouble finding motivation in life.
Teenage Alexander would rather play World of Warcraft than do his homework. While he plays the game, he’s motivated to keep learning, but in the real world, he’s resigned himself to not being very good at certain things, such as math and talking to girls. This changes very quickly when he meets a mysterious stranger who calls himself Chiron in a park in his hometown of Trondheim, Norway. Chiron asks Alexander to become his student so that the teen can learn how to motivate himself—even when the subject is less interesting to him than a video game. Chiron, who gradually reveals details of his world-traveling lifestyle, has a comprehensive curriculum planned for Alexander. It includes neuroscience, psychology, nutrition, and concepts such as the “fixed mindset” and the “growth mindset”—a lot to squeeze into a YA novel. The bulk of the story consists of chat transcripts and emails between Chiron and Alexander in which the teenager recaps the older man’s lessons and completes new assignments. As a result, the lessons are very clearly presented in a format that teens will likely identify with—whether they love World of Warcraft or not. From the book’s earliest pages, its similarities to Norwegian author Jostein Gaardner’s Sophie’s World (1991), in which a philosopher tutors a teenage girl, are hard to ignore; sure enough, in the final pages, Alexander presents Sophie’s World to Chiron as a gift. However, Lehn focuses far more on his book’s didactic mission than on storytelling and style. As a result, the characters lack individual voices, and even the teenage Alexander talks like a self-help book: “I think my low motivation is the main reason I don’t learn more in school,” he says to Chiron, just moments after meeting him.
A novel that offers some valuable life lessons for teens, although its story and characters often feel like window dressing.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1502531858
Page Count: 298
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
In this Australian import, Marchetta gets the voice of teenage angst just right in a hormone saturated coming-of-age story. Josephine Alibrandi, 17 and of Italian descent, is torn between her traditional upbringing, embodied by both her immigrant grandmother and her overprotective mother, and the norms of teenage society. A scholarship student at an esteemed Catholic girls’ school, she struggles with feelings of inferiority not only because she’s poorer than the other students and an “ethnic,” but because her mother never married. These feelings are intensified when her father, whom she’s just met, enters and gradually becomes part of her life. As Josephine struggles to weave the disparate strands of her character into a cohesive tapestry of self, she discovers some unsavory family secrets, falls in love for the first time, copes with a friend’s suicide, and goes from being a follower to a leader. Although somewhat repetitive and overlong, this is a tender, convincing portrayal of a girl’s bumpy ride through late adolescence. Some of the Australian expressions may be unfamiliar to US readers, but the emotions translate perfectly. (Fiction. 13-15)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30142-7
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A child’s feelings of loneliness and isolation are eventually replaced with a longing for adventure in a mysterious book from Nascimbene (A Day in September, 1995, not reviewed). Sent to a boarding school in the Swiss Alps for the summer while her parents are vacationing, L£cia, homesick for S—o Paulo and family, remains detached from all activities until the day she hears distant hammering emanating from a local barn. Intrigued, L£cia discovers a kind farmer named Aldo behind the sound; he is keeping a secret from the outside world. Befriending the girl after she pours out her heart to him, Aldo decides to show her the large sailboat he has been building. L£cia, who renames all the wildflowers she finds according to her wishes, finds a wildflower she calls Ocean Deep and sends it to her parents, foreshadowing the dream she is to have later aboard Aldo’s boat; in this dream she sails close enough to her shipbound parents to wave at them. The beautifully conceived illustrations have a range of appearances, from the look of cut-paper silhouettes whose spaces have been washed in watercolor, to landscapes and seascapes with perspectives and of a simplicity of line associated with Japanese art. The typeface, though attractive, is a small size that makes this better for read-aloud sessions than reading alone; the story, long for a picture book, but deeply felt, is ripe for the interpretation of children. (Picture book. 7-11)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56846-161-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
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