Beautifully renders the slow-motion alchemy of growing up; mesmerizing and memorable.
It’s a life-changing year for a sixth grader on the threshold of puberty in 1970s Chicago.
The only child of affluent Jewish parents, Matasha, 11, is a budding novelist. She’s also tiny. Although her precocity and slight stature have targeted her for bullying at her private school, she fears and resists the daily growth-hormone injections her doctor proposes. She clings to Jean, her only friend, but their fraying friendship breaks after Matasha, whose imagination has fixated on a missing boy from their neighborhood, pressures her into searching for his body. When Jean turns on her, Matasha’s loneliness deepens; bullying induces self-lacerating shame, but she survives. In the grim-faced photo of the Vietnamese girl her mother wants to adopt, Matasha fears a potential bully, then feels guilty when her attorney father dismisses the project. It’s a cold household: her father rarely home; her mother self-absorbed; their Polish housekeeper kind but distant. Although family dysfunction leads Matasha to a shocking discovery, her parents’ emotional disengagement has a freeing upside: It begets agency, if she has the courage to choose it and keep writing. Lauded author Erens’ middle-grade debut unfolds at a steady, measured pace, a successful stylistic departure from prevailing trends toward dialogue-heavy, present-tense narration. Matasha’s journey captures in rich, pellucid detail the experiments, missteps, humiliations, and hard-won victories that will form her adult self.
Beautifully renders the slow-motion alchemy of growing up; mesmerizing and memorable. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63246-125-4
Page Count: 296
Publisher: IgKids
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
A poignant and relevant retelling of a child immigrant’s struggle to recover from an accident and feel at home in America.
In the 1960s, Ruthie Mizrahi, a young Jewish Cuban immigrant to New York City, spends nearly a year observing her family and friends from her bed.
Before the accident, Ruthie’s chief goals are to graduate out of the “dumb class” for remedial students, to convince her parents to buy her go-go boots, and to play hopscotch with other kids in her Queens apartment building. But after Papi’s Oldsmobile is involved in a fatal multicar collision, Ruthie’s leg is severely broken. The doctor opts to immobilize both legs in a body cast that covers Ruthie from chest to toes. Bedridden and lonely, Ruthie knows she’s “lucky” to be alive, but she’s also “broken.” She begins collecting stories from her Jewban grandparents; her fellow young immigrant friends, Belgian Danielle and Indian Ramu; her “flower power” tutor, Joy; and her vibrant Mexican neighbor, Chicho, an artist who teaches her about Frida Kahlo. Ruthie also prays and writes letters to God, Shiva, and Kahlo, asking them for guidance, healing, and forgiveness. A cultural anthropologist and poet, the author based the book on her own childhood experiences, so it’s unsurprising that Ruthie’s story rings true. The language is lyrical and rich, the intersectionality—ethnicity, religion, class, gender—insightful, and the story remarkably engaging, even though it takes place primarily in the island of Ruthie’s bedroom.
A poignant and relevant retelling of a child immigrant’s struggle to recover from an accident and feel at home in America. (Historical fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54644-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
A story that sings to the soul.
Elio is in love for the first time—and he has no idea what to do about it.
Eighth grader Elio Solis is only 13, but he’s met the girl of his dreams. His feelings for Camelia are so profound that he sees things in ultraviolet: “Whoever heard of having your whole vision / change because you met some girl?” Growing up in East Oakland, California, Elio is trying to navigate social media, friendships, his family’s Mexican culture, and his changing body—all part of his quest to understand what it means to be a good boy who will grow into a good man. What does that look like when your father takes you to cockfights and your mother warns you about toxic masculinity? Most of all, how do you handle the crushing blows of a first heartbreak? Written in Salazar’s stunning and highly accessible verse, with Spanish words contextually woven in and easily understood by non-Spanish speakers, this novel stands out for the thoughtful way it expresses a young boy’s perspective as it discusses topics such as masculinity and consent. Elio and his dad join Brothers Rising, a group started by Fernando, Elio’s best friend Paco’s dad, which offers them community and a framework for honest conversations about coming of age and masculinity, as well as a beautiful rendering of Indigenous Mexican rituals.
A story that sings to the soul. (Verse fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781338775655
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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