by Patricia H. Aust ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 9, 2014
Though not particularly well-executed, this novel has value for the tough subject matter it addresses.
When dad goes into Dictator Mode, there’s no way to know how far or to whom his rage will extend. More often than not, someone winds up hurt.
This pattern of violence is normal for 15-year-old Miguel, his older sister, Ellie, and their mother. When Miguel’s father goes too far, severely injuring his mother and nearly killing their dog, it is time for his mother to act on her secret plan to take them all to a shelter for victims of domestic violence. Miguel is confused. He fears his father yet feels guilty for leaving. He wonders what kind of a man he is becoming—is he more like his father than he wants to be? The story follows the family through their stay at the shelter, dealing with the courts and making arrangements to live on their own. Text-message conversations reveal how the family’s problems affect everyone’s outside relationships, particularly Ellie’s relationship with her boyfriend, who displays many of her father’s worst traits. The issue-driven plot is fairly predictable and lacks nuance. The characters are underdeveloped, and some, particularly minority characters, border on stereotype. However, for young readers facing the issue of domestic violence at home, this narrative could offer some hope.
Though not particularly well-executed, this novel has value for the tough subject matter it addresses. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-935462-99-6
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Luminis
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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by Patricia McCormick ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 8, 2012
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
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 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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by Jerry Spinelli ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 3, 2021
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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