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FIGHTING FOR DONTAE

Name: FIGHTING FOR DONTAE
Author: Mike Castan
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2348-4

by Mike Castan ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2012

Reluctant teen readers will identify with Javier’s efforts to negotiate a world with few positive options.

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Middle school proves particularly difficult for Javier when he is assigned to spend time helping students in the special-education program.

Javier is about to enter middle school in a small California town with little to offer. He lives with his mother, who struggles with finances and drugs, and sometimes his father, when he is between jail stints. Javier and his friends are expected to be in a gang and constantly work to prove their toughness. Javier also knows enough to hide that he likes to read and how much he wants to avoid trouble. When he is given a service assignment working with special-education students, Javier is dismayed because it means more taunts and teasing. He does not expect his work reading with severely disabled Dontae to change him and provide a level of connection that has been missing in his life. This story, simple in both language and characterization, demonstrates the inevitability of a future on the margins for minority males without some help staying on track. His father is able to articulate it even as he is powerless to change. “I mean, it’s easy to say you want to do something, but can you see the path? Shoot, man. I wanted to do a lot of things, but I had no idea how to even start. And then sometimes you do see the path, but it gets blurry again.”

Reluctant teen readers will identify with Javier’s efforts to negotiate a world with few positive options. (Fiction 11-13)

Pub Date: May 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-8234-2348-4

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Holiday House

Review Posted Online: March 6, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES

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ZINK

by Cherie Bennett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

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Basing her novel on a one-page story written by an 11-year-old child shortly before her death from leukemia, Bennett (Life in the Fat Lane, 1998, etc.) creates a tale of courage personified. A herd of miniature zebras appears before Becky Zaslow on the day she is diagnosed with childhood cancer—leukemia. During times of painful treatment, the zebras take Becky away to Africa and the Serengeti where they fight off tough predators, cross the treacherous crocodile-filled Mara River, and tell tales about Zink, a mythological polka-dotted zebra. Becky’s secret journal outlines the course of each treatment and is interspersed with the tale of these playful zebras; they help her to remain courageous despite her fears. The zebras, not medical professionals, prepare Becky for death when her bone marrow transplant fails and she succumbs to a respiratory infection. As one of the zebras, Ice Z, tells her, “True courage is admitting we’re afraid and fighting the predators anyway.” After her death, Becky, as Zink, joins the zebra herd. With three pages of acknowledgments and a lengthy afterword, readers may gain more than they need to know about the true aspects of this poignant story, but the embellishments don’t interfere with the raw emotions explored, or the power of Becky’s journey as she learns to run with the herd. (glossary) (Fiction 11-13)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-385-32669-6

Page Count: 222

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
A HEART DIVIDED
by Cherie Bennett & Jeff Gottesfeld

- BOOK REVIEW
LIFE IN THE FAT LANE
by Cherie Bennett

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THREADS AND FLAMES

by Esther M. Friesner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2010

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Raisa's sister, Henda, has earned enough money to send for Raisa to join her in the goldineh medina of America. When Raisa arrives in 1910 New York from her Polish shtetl, she finds Henda missing. Responsible for supporting both herself and a newly orphaned toddler, Raisa finds a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Raisa's friends, described in language rich with the cadences of Yiddish, each have jealousies, loves and flaws; they're not mere trajectories toward tragedy. But tragedy does strike, with the real-life factory fire that killed 146 workers. Vivid description of the deaths—of workers trapped on higher floors or leaping from windows to choose a faster death—unavoidably invites comparisons with another, more recent tragedy. The comparison serves the novel well; when the prose isn't strong enough for sufficient horror, visceral memories of 9/11 will do the trick (at least for those readers old enough to remember). After some tear-jerking, the happy conclusion comes too suddenly—shockingly so. The journey, however, is satisfying enough on its own. (Historical fiction. 11-13)