Maata, a young Inuit girl tells a powerfully moving tale set in diary form. She begins by recounting her wait for the ship that will come through the breaking spring ice to rescue Morgan, the last of the four white explorers on the island of Tumak in the Arctic in 1924. Her tale spins back to how her people, accustomed to living off the land, were rounded up by the Canadian government in Ottawa, and kept from their traditional nomadic life. Maata’s mother, seeing their future in the ways of the Qallunaat—the whites—encourages her daughter to learn English first from an elder and then from the schoolmaster. Maata is drunk on words, loves to use them to hold and capture what she thinks and how she feels. Her journal vividly reflects what she learns from her family and what she learns from the boarding school in Quebec, where she’s sent when her parents die in an accident caused by a well-meaning cleric. It also reflects how carefully she reads the ice and vegetation and wildlife around her. The story of the four explorers, one of whom dies in the fire that grievously injures Morgan, two of whom choose to try to go over the ice in winter and are lost, illuminates the tangled effects of culture, liquor, and class on Inuit/Qallunaat relations. Maata’s voice is redolent with a precise, natural lyricism. The only false note is the complete lack of any sexual tension between her late adolescent self and the men she serves as guide and companion. Teen readers, however, will eagerly devour her story, with its dramatic shifts in locale and its depiction of a very alien culture and time. (bibliography, author’s note) (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-83463-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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