There are so few children’s books featuring sympathetic Muslim characters that it’s impossible to discount this one, but...
A 12-year-old Canadian Muslim girl chronicles the death of her terminally ill mother and her slow healing.
When the book opens, Nur’s mother has been sick for months, and treatments seem to be going nowhere. Nur picks up the diary her mother gave her and names it “Buraq” after a legendary animal that flew Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem. The piety that guides her here carries her through the gut-wrenching grief that is to follow, as does the discovery of some monarch butterfly chrysalises. Nur’s Baba tells her that “Allah has made everything in a pattern. He said people are part of that pattern too. Just like chrysalises don’t stay the same, people don’t stay the same either.” While skeptics may find the metaphor of a butterfly’s emergence from a chrysalis an inapt way to help a child deal with the death of a parent, it seems to work for Nur. Whether this book will work for children is another open question. Nur is so good, so pious, so ingenuous that she is very hard to relate to. While her grief and her rage never feel false, they are so quickly mitigated by her faith, at first mediated by her devout parents (her mother dies with “Allah” on her lips) and later on her own, that she seems more a role model for grieving in Islam than a real child.
There are so few children’s books featuring sympathetic Muslim characters that it’s impossible to discount this one, but it’s pretty pallid stuff. (glossary) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-86037-499-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Kube Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
A quick, agreeable caper, this may spark some discussion even as it entertains.
Myla and Peter step into the path of a gang when they unite forces to find Peter’s runaway brother, Randall.
As they follow the graffiti tags that Randall has been painting in honor of the boys’ deceased father, they uncover a sinister history involving stolen diamonds, disappearances, and deaths. It started long ago when the boys’ grandmother, a diamond-cutter, partnered with the head of the gang. She was rumored to have hidden his diamonds before her suspicious death, leaving clues to their whereabouts. Now everyone is searching, including Randall. The duo’s collaboration is initially an unwilling one fraught with misunderstandings. Even after Peter and Myla bond over being the only people of color in an otherwise white school (Myla is Indian-American; mixed-race Peter is Indian, African-American, and white), Peter can’t believe the gang is after Myla. But Myla possesses a necklace that holds a clue. Alternating first-person chapters allow peeks into how Myla, Peter, and Randall unravel the story and decipher clues. Savvy readers will put the pieces together, too, although false leads and red herrings are cleverly interwoven. The action stumbles at times, but it takes place against the rich backdrops of gritty New York City and history-laden Dobbs Ferry and is made all the more colorful by references to graffiti art and parkour.
A quick, agreeable caper, this may spark some discussion even as it entertains. (Mystery. 10-12)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2296-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ultimately, Burg’s lyrical prose will make readers think about the common ground among peoples, despite inevitable...
Melding the colors of heartache and loss with painterly strokes, Burg creates a vivid work of art about a girl grieving for her recently deceased mother against a Third World backdrop.
Clare is not speaking to her father. She has vowed never to speak to him again. Which could be tough, since the pair just touched down in Malawi. There, Clare finds herself struck by the contrast between American wealth and the relatively bare-bones existence of her new friends. Drowning in mourning and enraged at the emptiness of grief, Clare is a hurricane of early-adolescent emotions. Her anger toward her father crackles like lightning in the treetops. She finds purpose, though, in teaching English to the younger children, which leads her out of grief. Burg’s imagery shimmers. “The girl talks to her mother in a language that sounds like fireworks, full of bursts and pops. She holds her hand over her mouth giggling.... She probably has so many minutes with her mother, she can’t even count them.” Her realization of the setting and appreciation for the Malawian people are so successful that they compensate for Clare's wallowing, which sometimes feels contrived.
Ultimately, Burg’s lyrical prose will make readers think about the common ground among peoples, despite inevitable disparities. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: June 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-385-73471-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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