Yay for Bernice.
Fifth-grader Bernice has no friends due to her reputation as a fearsome bully.
She lashes out at everyone, especially those who taunt her and reinforce her vision of herself as fat, ugly, and stupid. But early on readers learn other truths about her. Her four older brothers are out of control, and her mother is completely self-centered and a bully herself. Bernice doesn’t even have a real bed in their cramped trailer. The public library is her only sanctuary, and the librarian encourages her to research information on the computer. She dreams of attending a stunt camp and devises a fraudulent story for a funding website, managing to raise a substantial sum—which her mother promptly steals from her to use for her own California dream. Bernice is sent to live with her aunt at St. Drogo’s, a tiny church and abbey in the town of Halfway, Texas. Sister Mary Margaret, aka Aunt Josephine, is welcoming and kind, as are the other nuns. Here she is determined to become the New Bernice. There are a few hilarious glitches along the way and one very serious setback, but she makes a friend, learns to ride a horse, and saves the church from closing. Lenz employs several stereotypes in setting and characters—Bernice’s family are collectively the cartoon embodiment of “poor white trash”—but Bernice is pragmatic, complex, and compelling, and she has a heart of gold.
Yay for Bernice. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7041-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride.
A new virtual-reality theme park goes haywire on a crowd of young victims, er, visitors in Alexander’s latest screamfest.
Having scored one of just 100 coveted preview tickets to a cutting-edge, kids-only venue dubbed ESCAPE, budding amusement park fan and designer Cody Baxter is looking forward to a life-changing experience. What he gets is more of a life-threatening one, as games and rides with names like Triassic Terror and Haunted Hillside not only pit him against a monster and then zombies—or sometimes a monster and zombies—as well as ruthless competing players, but seem tailored to play on individual personal terrors. And, in some never explained way, the VR quickly turns into real battles that inflict real wounds even as the real settings shift with sudden, dizzying unpredictability. Teaming up with loyal new friends Jayson Torn and Inga Andersdottir, the former described as being Japanese and White and the latter as Norwegian, Cody (who seems to default to White) struggles for survival, learning ultimately that ESCAPE was created by an evil genius with an ulterior motive who is convinced that he can teach children a salutary lesson. The plot’s no more logical in its twists and contrivances than the premise, but the author’s knack for spinning out nightmarish situations is definitely on display here as the tale careens toward a properly lurid outcome.
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride. (Light horror. 9-12)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-26047-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Despite flaws, this is a book worth reading simply for its originality
A fantasy based in Caribbean folklore.
Corinne La Mer is a brave 11-year-old growing up on a Caribbean island. On All Hallow’s Eve, when a pair of troublemaking brothers tie her deceased mother’s prized necklace to a wild animal, Corinne chases the animal into the forest to retrieve it. However, this is no ordinary forest: It’s known for being the abode of “jumbies,” creatures “hidden in the shadows, always waiting for their moment to attack.” Though Corinne doesn’t believe in them, a jumbie follows her out of the forest. The third-person narration tells the back story—in bits and pieces—of this jumbie, who reveals herself to be Corinne’s mother’s sister. It’s never satisfactorily explained why Severine (as Corinne’s jumbie aunt calls herself) seeks out her niece, nearly a decade after her sister’s death. In order to fight Severine—who, sympathetically, only wants a family but is bent on turning humans to jumbies to get one—Corinne must rely not only on her own strength, but that of newfound friends. The novel is based on a Haitian folk tale, according to the author’s note, and it’s refreshing to see a fantasy with its roots outside Europe. Baptiste never quite manages to control the story’s pacing, though, and certain elements in the ending feel arbitrary.
Despite flaws, this is a book worth reading simply for its originality . (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: April 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61620-414-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
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