Corruption is everywhere in 1870s New York City, and George Choogart wants to be the journalist who exposes it.
George arrives from England with a job offer from the New York Times and, as a test of his skills, is assigned the task of finding a story so new as to be unfamiliar to the editor. He thinks he has found it in Lew Mayflower’s Woodrat Saloon, where he goes undercover as a fighter to learn more about illegal bare-knuckle boxing matches. Politician Big Jim Dickinson finds fighters there for use in his secret and very crooked matches. Although George is in the thick of the intrigue and danger, it is female reporter Holly Quine who gets the scoop. Sacks nicely captures the chaos of the time and place and weaves a fast-paced, action-packed tale. Detailed descriptions of the brawls and bare-knuckle fights make up the bulk of the text. Several peripheral characters, while quite colorful, appear to have little purpose. In the end, George leaves New York and heads west, thus paving the way for a series of tales set in the Woodrat with new fighters and their back stories and penned by different authors. Publishing simultaneously are The Giant, by Jonathan Mary-Todd, Fighter’s Alley, by Heather Duffy Stone, and Lightning’s Run, by Gabriel Goodman.
Lots of action and low page count should propel reluctant readers along. (Historical fiction. 11-15)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4677-2163-9
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Darby Creek
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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A Texas bayou holds memories and secrets, weaving together people and animals through connected histories.
Buffalo Bayou takes her place as part of an ensemble cast that spans nearly two centuries. Sixteen-year-old Cade Curtis is a white boy who works alongside his father stealing angel statues from cemeteries for an antiques dealer, and Soleil Broussard is a 16-year-old Creole Christian with a tiny honey bear jar tattooed on her wrist. The two attend school together in present-day Houston, Texas, but the story intertwines their connection with stories of slaves and an ocelot in a narrative that runs away like the rushing of a river. Texas is a gorgeous backdrop for the story, eliciting haunting imagery that spotlights the natural beauty of the state. Each character helps piece together a quilt of experiences that stream from the omnipresent bayou who sees, hears, and protects, and the revelations of their overlapping connections are well-paced throughout. The novel is less successful, however, at underscoring why there are so many voices battling for space in the text. Too-short vignettes that are rather haphazardly forced together provide glimpses into the lives of the characters but make it difficult to follow all of the threads. While an author’s note offers historical background explaining the inspiration for the characters, it does not provide sufficient cohesion.
Moving imagery is muddied by disjointed character representation in a novel that feels overcrowded. (author’s note) (Fiction. 13-15)Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2109-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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