A veteran high-school teacher cracks, holding his class at gunpoint on the last day of school in this drama-in-poetry from Glenn (Who Killed Mr. Chippendale?, 1996, etc.). Writing in conversational free-verse trains of thought, Glenn probes the hopes, fears, conceits, and moods of students, officials, and bystanders, introducing each of the hostages with a series of vignettes that trace the evolution of a particular idea or relationship through four years of school and to the beginning of class that fateful day. Fond of playing with language and irony—e.g., pairing poems in which the speakers express opposite views in nearly the same words—the author keeps the focus so firmly on individuals that the plot is really only a pretext for a series of earnest character portraits. From Morton Potter's determined assault on his weight problem to Denise Slattery cooing to her unborn child, readers will find plenty of familiar peer attitudes and situations with which to identify and to ponder. The teacher's own voice is heard in a handful of despondent poems: ``I speak./Who listens?/I teach./Who cares? . . . There's little I have done to make a difference.'' After the teacher's capture, police find a clipping in his pocket describing his 27-year-old son's apparent suicide by drowning. An arresting, if undeveloped, premise cements a gallery of recognizable high-school seniors fretting about—or blowing off—their pasts and futures. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-525-67548-5
Page Count: 183
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1997
A sweet yet thinly developed narrative.
Sylvie Jones is on her way to the Brindille School of Culinary Arts & Magic in this YA debut by a former Top Chef contestant.
Due to her mother’s alleged cheating years ago at the famed Golden Whisk—the biggest magical cooking competition around—Sylvie has been admitted only provisionally into Brindille’s six-week preparatory program. The Council of Culinary Sages has tasked her with proving her trustworthiness and talent by finishing first in her class. If Sylvie succeeds, she’ll be officially allowed to take the enrollment test. If she fails, she’ll be banned from “cooking up magic” altogether. Right before Sylvie arrives at Brindille, a mysterious stranger informs her that she’s part of a decades-old prophecy—her name is even written upon the Apple of Discord, a carefully guarded magical treasure borne by “a secret tree that only produce[s] fruit in times of great danger.” Now Sylvie is even more determined to succeed and clear her family’s name. While the overarching plot might hold the attention of ardent fans of magic school stories, the execution falls flat. Experienced genre readers will be disappointed to find that the narrative lacks depth and relies on cliched idioms and tired wordplay, and the culinary elements of the magical world are in need of more robust worldbuilding. Sylvie is cued white, and there’s diversity among the supporting characters.
A sweet yet thinly developed narrative. (recipes) (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798890033635
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
From Thomas (Slave Day, p. 306, etc.), an attempt to draw a cross-section of humanity from a group of high-school students performing community service. In the first chapter, as part of a college course, Randall is assigned to follow up on nine high-school seniors who had to do community service projects to graduate, by interviewing them and the participants in their projects. He's a skeptic after his own experience on the receiving end of someone else's community-service project a decade earlier. The next nine chapters are more like short stories, each one a self-contained first-person account by one of the nine seniors: Some perform their service with honor, some with cynicism. Thomas covers a lot of territory and demands that readers keep track of several characters and activities; each narrator establishes himself or herself, describes the mission, learns a lesson, or hits a defining moment, then checks out, without a reappearance of Randall for perspective or hindsight—which leaves the book's premise, and readers, dangling. It's a promising work—it just doesn't feel finished. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-689-80958-1
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
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