A British import with Cormier-like undertones that explores the twinned themes of fear and courage. Robert, narrator of the tale, is “the class squit”—timorous and awkward, he is the easy butt of the vicious and charismatic Niker. He is unutterably lonely; although he has a loving relationship with his mother, she is hardly ever at home as she works to support the two of them in the wake of the departure of Robert’s father some years previous. When the class begins a project to match students with residents of a nearby nursing home to share life experiences, Robert finds himself paired with the imperious and slightly mad Mrs. Sorrel, who directs him to go to a condemned apartment building. Robert’s unwilling investigation leads to both a subtle but profound change in his relationship with Niker and an intense, almost mystical, attachment to the dying Mrs. Sorrel. There is a touch of the surreal in the telling of the story as Robert shifts his focus from his own misery to the pain, both past and present, of Mrs. Sorrel, and attempts to save her life by recreating the pattern of a Cree variant on the Selkie myth. Singer, a newcomer to writing for children, here displays a terrific sense of voice—“How come grown-ups are always so smart about your life, but not quite so smart about their own?”—and an ability to develop character, as she allows Robert to move from self-absorption and self-pity to real strength and an understanding that “you make your own luck.” The setting, a seaside British town in autumn, is beautifully realized, and the publisher should be congratulated for refraining from Americanizing most Briticisms. The metaphors of feathers and flight are omnipresent to the point of obviousness and Mrs. Sorrel herself is drawn with a regrettable lack of subtlety, but Robert’s voice, alternately wry and yearning, and the ambitious reach of the narrative carry the show. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 9, 2002
ISBN: 0-385-72980-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
Explanatory note; reading list.
Yep illuminates the Chinese immigrant experience here and abroad in a follow-up to The Serpent's Children (1984) and Mountain Light (1985).
After accidentally killing one of the hated Manchu soldiers, Otter (14) flees Kwangtung for the "Golden Mountain"; he finds his adoptive father Squeaky and Uncle Foxfire in the Sierra Nevada, where thousands of "Guests" are laboriously carving a path for the railroad. Brutal cold, dangerous work, and a harsh overseer take their toll as Squeaky is blinded in a tunnel accident, Foxfire is lost in a storm, and other workers are frozen or half-starved. By the end, toughened in body and spirit, Otter resolves never to forget them or their sacrifices. Foxfire and Otter consider themselves only temporary residents here, preparing for the more important work of modernizing their own country while ridding it of Manchu, Europeans, and, especially, the scourge of opium. America is a dreamlike place; English dialogue is printed in italics as a tongue foreign to most of the characters; and though Otter befriends the overseer's troubled son, such social contact is discouraged on both sides. In a story enlivened with humor and heroism, Yep pays tribute to the immigrants who played such a vital role in our country's history.
Explanatory note; reading list. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-022971-3
Page Count: 276
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At once serious and playful, this tale of a teenager’s penitential journey to four corners of the country can be read on several levels. While attempting to kill himself on the highway after a humiliating social failure, Brent causes a fatal accident for another motorist, Lea Zamora. His sentence requires a personal act of atonement, if the victim’s family so desires; Lea’s mother hands him a bus pass and tells him to place pictorial whirligigs in Maine, Florida, Washington, and California as monuments to her daughter’s ability to make people smile. Brent sets out willingly, armed with plywood, new tools, and an old construction manual. Characteristically of Fleischman (Seedfolks, 1997, etc.), the narrative structure is unconventional: Among the chapters in which Brent constructs and places the contraptions are independent short stories that feature the whirligigs, playing significant roles in the lives of others. Brent encounters a variety of travelers and new thoughts on the road, and by the end has lost much of the sense of isolation that made his earlier aspirations to be one of the in-crowd so important. The economy of language and sustained intensity of feeling are as strongly reminiscent of Cynthia Rylant’s Missing May (1992) as are the wind toys and, at least in part, the theme, but Fleischman’s cast and mood are more varied, sometimes even comic, and it’s Brent’s long physical journey, paralleled by his inner one, that teaches him to look at the world and himself with new eyes. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-5582-7
Page Count: 133
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
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