Leaves readers with more questions than answers.
First the good news: Half the pieces in this uneven anthology are standouts.
The Korean-American teen in David Yoo’s story makes an unwanted, undeserved Asian “model minority” label work for him, acquiring unexpected life skills in the process. The sole black student at a Vermont boarding school is unsettled when black twin sisters also enroll in Varian Johnson’s nuanced tale. Gene Luen Yang’s graphic anecdote demonstrates how standing up for one’s beliefs can yield rewards beyond self-esteem. Luis’ siblings give him permission and support to transcend cultural constraints and be himself in Francisco X. Stork’s gentle tale. Naomi Shihab Nye’s wistful, bittersweet poem “Lexicon” looks at the power of words to unite or separate, exemplified by her Palestinian father and his fading hopes for peace. The remaining pieces are significantly weaker. Perkins salutes the value of lightening up in her introduction: “Conversations about race can be so serious, right? People get all tense or touchy.” She offers ground rules: Good humor pokes fun at the powerful, not the weak; builds affection for the “other”; and is usually self-deprecatory. Yet too few pieces here reflect those rules or appear to have been conceived as humor. Undisclosed selection criteria, author bios that don’t always speak to identity, and weak and dated content are problematic. The sweeping racial and cultural judgments and hostile—occasionally mean-spirited—tones of several pieces disappoint; angry venting may be justified and therapeutic, but it’s seldom funny.
Leaves readers with more questions than answers. (Anthology. 12 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5866-3
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
Inspiring but not universal.
To hear the more than 50 contributors tell it, one might think that queer adults mostly end up living in ritzy corners of New York City and becoming published authors.
That, perhaps, is the necessary consequence of this project, which compiles lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer writers' letters to their younger selves. Big names in adult, teen or children's literature have contributed, including Michael Cunningham, Armistead Maupin, Marion Dane Bauer, Arthur Levine, Gregory Maguire and Amy Bloom. A number of comics artists—including Michael DiMotta, Jennifer Camper and Jasika Nicole—have penned letters in comic form. Many authors use their short (usually two- to three-page) letters to talk about the future. Some letters read like a memoir in second person; some describe past addictions, suicide attempts and other grim circumstances; many give advice. Comparisons to the It Gets Better video campaign, in which LGBT adults promise queer and questioning teenagers that life improves after high school, are inevitable. Contributors Jacqueline Woodson and Erik Orrantia even use the language of “getting better” outright. Yet the disproportionate achievement of fame, wealth and successful careers in the arts among the authors here seems an unfair promise to make to most readers.
Inspiring but not universal. (Anthology. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-39932-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Entertaining and eye-opening.
Brief, breezy profiles of women who committed crimes, from Delilah to Catherine the Great to gangster moll Virginia Hill, with comic-strip commentary from the authors.
With a conversational style, the mother-daughter team of Yolen and Stemple recap the crimes and misdeeds of 26 women and a few girls in this jaunty collective biography. After each two-to-four–page biographical sketch and accompanying illustration of the woman, a one-page comic strip shows the authors arguing about the woman’s guilt. The comic-strip Stemple typically comes down on the side of “guilty” or, in the case of Cleopatra marrying her brother, “icky.” Yolen tends toward moral relativism, suggesting the women acted according to the norms of their times or that they were driven to crime by circumstances such as poverty or lack of women’s rights. Thus, strip-teasing Salome, who may have been only 10, was manipulated by her mother into asking for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Outlaw Belle Starr was “a good Southern girl raised during difficult times.” While the comic strips grow repetitive, the narrative portraits, arranged chronologically, offer intriguing facts—and in some cases, speculation—about an array of colorful figures, many of whom won’t be known to readers.
Entertaining and eye-opening. (bibliography, index) (Collective biography. 12-15)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-58089-185-1
Page Count: 172
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
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