This second novel from McGuigan (Cloud Dancer, 1994, not reviewed) is set in the Bronx of 1963. When her mother is evicted from her apartment, Fiona, 13, and her older brother, Liam, go back to their father, an abusive drunk. Things don't go well, and Fiona runs away before she is hit, ending up in the black and Puerto Rican neighborhood her parents always warned her away from. At first Fiona is scared, but then she runs into Yolanda Baker, a friend from a former school. The girls spend a picaresque day together, and Fiona's eyes are opened to the African-American community and the civil-rights movement. She meets some caring and unique characters: Yolanda's activist Aunt Cheryl; elderly family friend and doll-maker Cas; daffy Mrs. Carson. A contrived storyline and setting, and Fiona's wise-beyond- her-years narration, result in an unconvincing and sometimes didactic work. The strong point of the novel is that there are no easy answers: Yolanda and Liam's drug-running is catastrophic but unresolved, and, realistically, readers never know whether Fiona's father will be able to reform or if her mother can keep the family together. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-689-81250-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-06-028386-6 In a story based on real events, and told in poems, Sones explores what happened and how she reacted when her adored older sister suddenly began screaming and hearing voices in her head, and was ultimately hospitalized. Individually, the poems appear simple and unremarkable, snapshot portraits of two sisters, a family, unfaithful friends, and a sweet first love. Collected, they take on life and movement, the individual frames of a movie that in the unspooling become animated, telling a compelling tale and presenting a painful passage through young adolescence. The form, a story-in-poems, fits the story remarkably well, spotlighting the musings of the 13-year-old narrator, and pinpointing the emotions powerfully. She copes with friends who snub her, worries that she, too, will go mad, and watches her sister’s slow recovery. To a budding genre that includes Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust (1997) and Virginia Euwer Wolff’s Make Lemonade (1993), this book is a welcome addition. (Poetry. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028387-4
Page Count: 220
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
By virtue of a brief but meaningful friendship, two dissatisfied girls from sharply different backgrounds come to realize the value of what they have. Glory Bea Goode, who just finished seventh grade, hates living in her rural Missouri town in an old historic home that doubles as a junk shop. But Glory’s stable life in “a house without wheels” is the envy of Marvalene Zulig, who travels around the country with a touring carnival. Although they are at opposite ends of the temperamental spectrum—Marvalene is in-your-face assertive while Glory is timid and diffident—each embraces past hurts that poison their lives. Marvalene holds her father and the grueling carnival life he loves responsible for her mom’s disfiguring stroke, while Glory, whose face is marred by a large birthmark, is too self-conscious to make friends. In the course of this colorfully written novel, Glory finds out that if she sees herself “as imperfect, other people will, too,” and Marvalene comes to learn that she’s a true carnival “firefly,” a person who “only shine(s) while on the wing.” Peopled with a quirky mix of improbable characters and somewhat lacking in emotional punch, this humane story conveys, in a quiet but stubbornly persuasive style, that happiness comes from within. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23419-5
Page Count: 273
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
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