Never stilted or clumsy, this debut novel reads like the work of a far more experienced writer.
Clare, a teenager reeling from her parents’ divorce, investigates her strange new artistic obsession in Johnson’s young-adult paranormal mystery.
Sixteen-year-old Clare’s life has been recently upended: After her parents’ divorce, she moved with her mom to a downscale school and neighborhood. Now she’s seeing a shrink after some binge drinking over the summer, and she can’t stop compulsively drawing skulls with wings. Her shrink believes it’s delayed grief over her father leaving the family, but Clare isn’t so sure—especially when she finds the exact same skull image on an old gravestone for a girl named Samantha. Eerie parallels exist between Clare and Samantha, who died at 16 under mysterious circumstances in 1798. Worse, Clare seems to be re-experiencing that death in vivid, frightening dreams and visions. Does Samantha want something, and what? With the help of art-class friend Neil, whose talent, gentle ways and dark coloring appeal to her, Clare investigates what really happened in 1798. At the same time, she works on repairing her fractured sense of self in the wake of the divorce, forging new understandings with her family and finding a real friend—and more—in Neil. Johnson presents a believable, multilayered heroine whose narration is lively and insightful. Clare can be sarcastic and dramatic like most teenagers, but she’s also thoughtful and observant. Reflecting on her drunken head injury last summer, Clare considers Samantha’s death: “A girl my age, on the cusp of the unknown. A girl who deserved more than to shatter on a bed of rocks, before her life stood a fighting chance of getting started.” Throughout the novel, Clare advances in empathetic understanding while remaining very much a teenager. Clare and Neil’s sweet, low-key romance is skillfully integrated into the investigation, and it even possesses interesting parallels to events in 1798. Even minor characters, like Vince, the burnout house painter, come alive. Characters speak in natural sounding dialogue, as when Vince, looking at some mysterious symbols, says: “That looks like a bad trip I had once in an Arby’s.” The action is brisk, with a surprising but believable twist near the end.
Never stilted or clumsy, this debut novel reads like the work of a far more experienced writer.Pub Date: March 23, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A joyful celebration.
Families in a variety of configurations play, dance, and celebrate together.
The rhymed verse, based on a song from the Noodle Loaf children’s podcast, declares that “Families belong / Together like a puzzle / Different-sized people / One big snuggle.” The accompanying image shows an interracial couple of caregivers (one with brown skin and one pale) cuddling with a pajama-clad toddler with light brown skin and surrounded by two cats and a dog. Subsequent pages show a wide array of families with members of many different racial presentations engaging in bike and bus rides, indoor dance parties, and more. In some, readers see only one caregiver: a father or a grandparent, perhaps. One same-sex couple with two children in tow are expecting another child. Smart’s illustrations are playful and expressive, curating the most joyful moments of family life. The verse, punctuated by the word together, frequently set in oversized font, is gently inclusive at its best but may trip up readers with its irregular rhythms. The song that inspired the book can be found on the Noodle Loaf website.
A joyful celebration. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22276-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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