A tedious tale of a teenager who finds out that his 40-something mother has been a fugitive since the era of the Vietnam War. After nearly 15 years of abrupt moves, name changes, no telephones, and cash-only transactions, Toby has never cracked his mother's reticence about her past, nor tried very hard to find out about his father. Suddenly, clues begin falling into his lap: an old photo in the house of a suspiciously new ``old friend,'' a sheaf of not-very-well-hidden birth certificates and driver's licenses, an Internet news story about a 1970 raid on a student group supposedly plotting a bombing, found by chance while Toby researches a school report. When Toby sees his mother's face on a poster at the local sheriff's, he knows that the stakes are about to be pulled up again—but this time he opts to stay behind as she takes off for the Canadian border. Depending heavily on chance discoveries and her protagonist's strangely mild curiosity, Ryan creates neither suspense nor credibility, leaving readers to wonder how, even with the aid of a national underground network, Toby's mother fooled both her son and the authorities for so long. This sketchy mise-en-scäne, plus a cut-and-dried ending—Toby's mother reappears as he's telling his class how proud he is of her, turns herself in, and then learns that her protest group had been set up by government agents—wastes characters who often display some surprising depths. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-689-80789-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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