Fresh from My Sister Is Driving Me Crazy (1991), eighth- grader Mattie relates the further ordeals of life with twin sister Pru. The girls' once-identical paths take markedly different twists as Pru gets more involved as tambourine player for the rock band Paramedics, while Mattie experiences the awakening of political conscience: she hopes to help her mother's friend Minerva Hightower get elected to city council over slickster Harvey Jenkins, who is using every big-money, down-and- dirty trick in the book. Realistically, he wins; also realistically, Mattie's political concerns don't overshadow her worries about which boy—handsome Cam or brainy Nelson—to ask to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Though this subplot does lapse into sitcom-style high-jinks and absurd jocularity, the twins remain the refreshingly distinct individuals they were in the first book, while the rest of this funny, well-paced novel offers mature insights into the unfolding of civic duty and social responsibility against a vivid backdrop of local politics. (Fiction. 11+)
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-73851-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
Harry Baguely has just made it to the bomb shelter when a Luftwaffe bomb obliterates his home, parents, and little sister. Horrified by their fate and by the prospect of going to live in a cousin's overcrowded flat, Harry takes the blankets he was carrying at the time of the blast and a briefcase containing family documents and sets off up the coast north of his home near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, accompanied by Don, a stray dog. Like the dauntless puss in Blitzcat (1989), Harry encounters a variety of people who reveal their characters by their manner of enduring the war. A wrathful farmer violently evicts him from a haystack; an alcoholic recluse teaches him survival lore of the beach; a fatherly corporal befriends him until the return of a vicious homosexual associate, whose advances force Harry to move on. After a terrifying night crossing from Lindisfarne to the mainland, when he and Don are caught by the tide, Harry is taken in by a gentle schoolmaster who is grieving for his own son. Their mutual solace is not quite the end of Harry's journey—with a startling final twist, Westall sets his entire story in new light. Meanwhile, Harry is revealed, to himself and the reader, as a 12-year-old with intelligence, competence, and conscience, a boy with the resilience to cope with the blow he receives at the end. A fine survival story, winner of the 1990 Guardian Award. (Fiction. 11+)
Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1991
ISBN: 0-374-34205-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1991
With rare honesty, a former teenage mother shares her own experiences while putting forth many other options. This is a handbook about feelings, including some—like apathy—that are rarely discussed, with emphasis on success stories whatever the choice. For Arthur herself, the experience has been both a struggle (fighting the urge to call her daughter a sister) and a joy (gaining confidence in making choices). With many lists of suggestions (stress reducers; getting realistic about the father's role; pros and cons of abortion; planning for unplanned sex; dietary precautions; going to school; etc.), the pages become an empathetic workbook in decision making. In its practicality and insistence on motivation and persistence as keys to success, this nicely complements Kuklin's What Do I Do Now? (p. 730) as must reading during a crisis—or better yet, before it occurs. Bibliography; index. (Nonfiction. 12+)
Pub Date: June 15, 1991
ISBN: 0-930934-46-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1991
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