A sci-fi story with an intriguing setting but an unsurprising narrative structure.
Set in a futuristic Uganda, Kisakye’s (Tech Explorers League: Hacked!, 2017, etc.) middle-grade novel follows four 10-year-old friends as they attempt to win a science fair trophy.
Dembe can’t wait for summer break to begin. He’s half asleep in class when the headmistress announces that this break will be longer than usual, so that students can work on a project for the school’s inaugural science fair. Dembe teams up with his friends Jingo, Erisa, and Talemwa, and together, they decide to build a robot. It can’t be just any “bot,” though—their world is already full of “bots to drive trucks,” prepare food, and do chores—so if they want to win, their creation must be extraordinary. They need someone to teach them how to build robots. Also, where will they get the expensive parts they need? And will they finish in time? With the help of professor Fundi, “the brains behind most of the robots made in Uganda,” and the inspiration of Abram, Fundi’s “AssistBot,” who has the “closest thing to the human brain ever created,” the friends set to work. But when they encounter a problem, Dembe makes a decision that could hurt the whole team. This book’s plot is rote—children take on a challenge, a generous adult helps, an issue arises, and “at the end, they will have learnt a lesson.” However, it’s refreshing to read a story peopled by black characters in an African country in which the focus isn’t on African culture, hardship, or fable. At times, though, the contrast between the technical language—“exposed metal pathways were integrated into the brace”—and the simplistic kid’s-book text is distracting.
A sci-fi story with an intriguing setting but an unsurprising narrative structure.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9986390-3-1
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Aniseeker
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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