A timely, well-executed story of a teen journalist’s determination to uncover the truth.
A 13-year-old aspiring journalist sets out to prove her elderly neighbor’s innocence of a long-ago crime in this middle-grade mystery.
Middle school student Nita Simmons lives with her mother in Crawford, Virginia. Her mom struggles to make ends meet, so Nita initially hesitates to ask for a $25 fee to join the Junior Journalist Club at school. Later, after an article that Nita writes for her school paper is discredited, the young girl doubts her journalistic abilities despite encouragement from a supportive teacher. Nita, who’s identified in the text as having brown skin, gets to know her elderly African American neighbor, Earl Melvin. She later discovers that he was sent to prison for 20 years for a rape of a white co-worker, but she’s certain that he didn’t commit such a crime. Nita’s mother admonishes her daughter to avoid the ex-convict, but the girl is driven to pursue the story and honor her journalistic pledge: “To seek the truth. Check. To fight injustice. Check.” In the process, she gets to know Melvin, who introduces her to civil rights history and the music of musicians she’s never heard before, such as Nina Simone. In his debut, Fanning makes Nita’s aspirations and commitment to journalism compelling and believable, and her family’s poverty is conveyed via subtle but telling details; for instance, Nita is the only journalism student in her class who must check out a laptop. The young girl watches one present-day protest on television, but the focus of the book is less on the present than on injustices of the past: “She’d read about the bombings in Birmingham and all the awful things that could happen to people because of the color of their skin.”
A timely, well-executed story of a teen journalist’s determination to uncover the truth.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73390-858-0
Page Count: 206
Publisher: Immortal Works Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-worn character types and plot devices may earn the first juvenile title in Amazon’s new line of imports a little traction with fans of Cornelia Funke’s mysteries. Quintessentially meek orphan Darius Dorian looks upon an assignment to shadow violin-maker Archibald Archinola for two weeks as a welcome chance to escape his orphanage roommate’s bullying. Then Darius discovers that plucking a certain old violin in Archinola’s shop causes any wound or illness to disappear. He steals the violin and is subsequently kidnapped by a doltish con man and his termagant mother, who force his assistance as they set themselves up as miracle healers. Along with a relentlessly two-dimensional bully, Reh trots in a supporting cast led by Darius’ new Asian friend Mey-Mey (“the outer corners of her eyes bend upwards like the corners of a smiling mouth”), sets up a budding romance between the stuffy-but-decent Archinola and a local jeweler and ultimately sends the con artists packing. Despite potentially confusing bits—from repeatedly-mentioned “brown patches” on Mey-Mey’s neck and hand that turn out to be calluses rather than birthmarks to everyone’s sudden and inexplicable loss of interest in the violin’s magic at the end—the tale’s steady predictability will keep less-demanding readers engaged. (Fantasy. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61109-004-8
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
Sketchy infodumps and plotting leave fancy packaging to carry the load in this elaborately decorated journal.
Impelled by a request delivered by a cat, 13-year-old orphan Abigail compiles information on 15 probably mythical beasts, from mermaids and sea monsters to bunyips, barguests and Bigfoot. Meanwhile she also records incidents in a largely unhappy life—cloistered at home by a tyrannical grandfather and afflicted at her small-town school by bullies and cliques alike. Framed as a diary that fills every square inch including the endpapers, her narrative is presented on swatches of paper interspersed with a mix of dramatic full-page creature portraits, smaller images of old prints and supplementary drawings. These last are in a more informal style, and all are neatly applied over backgrounds pre-brushed with rich colors. Her “reports” run to only a few short comments or quotes (capped at the end by a stale booklist and a more helpful set of websites). Her personal miseries are abruptly resolved by a miraculous pendant and the revelation—quickly laid out at the end and reading more like a draft scenario—that the mythical creatures are real and there’s a struggle going on between those who would hide them and others who want them exposed.
Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-57091-718-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
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