When 12-year-old Kelley is terribly burned in an automobile accident, she must heal not only physically, but psychologically as well. Much of the novel’s action takes place in a burn unit, where Kelley begins to comprehend what has happened: in addition to a badly broken leg, one hand and half of her face are covered with third-degree burns that will take at least a year to fully heal. Cummings (Autumn Journey, 1997, etc.) keeps the third-person narration tightly focused on Kelley and her internal struggle to cope with her new reality, and this becomes simultaneously the novel’s strength and weakness. Compeling the reader to move through Kelley’s healing process with her, it quickly becomes almost relentless: “When they finished strapping the new pressure mask on her, when the Velcro straps were good and snug, when she saw the world through two small holes, Kelley knew she was truly alone. A prisoner contained in a cell of plastic.” It seems unfair to accuse a 12-year-old burn victim of narcissism, but Kelley’s undoubtedly perfectly normal reaction to her circumstance becomes somewhat tiresome when it is the only device to drive the plot. Predictably enough, she is coaxed into a more positive attitude by the end of the book, but this comes so suddenly and after so much denial that it’s unconvincing. The burn unit procedures carry a fascination of their own and will appeal to those readers who love weepy medical dramas, but Kelley’s ordinariness ultimately keeps her story ordinary, too. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46522-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK TO SCREEN
The poster boy for relentless mischief-makers everywhere, first encountered in No, David! (1998), gives his weary mother a rest by going to school. Naturally, he’s tardy, and that’s but the first in a long string of offenses—“Sit down, David! Keep your hands to yourself! PAY ATTENTION!”—that culminates in an afterschool stint. Children will, of course, recognize every line of the text and every one of David’s moves, and although he doesn’t exhibit the larger- than-life quality that made him a tall-tale anti-hero in his first appearance, his round-headed, gap-toothed enthusiasm is still endearing. For all his disruptive behavior, he shows not a trace of malice, and it’ll be easy for readers to want to encourage his further exploits. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-48087-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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