Jem’s been bouncing between foster homes since her mother overdosed when Jem was only six. Now she’s a typical troubled teen, skipping her special-ed classes almost as often as she goes. Though she’s not entirely typical, as most troubled teens don’t see the death dates of every person they meet, floating in eight stark numerals over each head. 10102001, her mother’s number. 07142013, her foster mother’s. And 12152010, Spider’s. Spider is the gangly, twitchy, stinky classmate who’s the first person ever to try to be Jem’s friend. When the two of them are seen running away from a massive terrorist attack in London—Jem had warning of the deaths, hadn’t she?—they flee the police investigation and run away into the country. If only December 15 weren’t closing in fast, Jem could even be happy with her new romance. Their journey is filled with heartwarming encounters with helpful but realistically wary strangers feeding their bodies and touching their hearts. A lovely, bittersweet tearjerker about living life to its fullest. (Fantasy. 13-15)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-14299-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2010
Namioka (Den of the White Fox, 1997, etc.) offers readers a glimpse of the ritual of foot-binding, and a surprising heroine whose life is determined by her rejection of that ritual. Ailin is spirited—her family thinks uncontrollable—even at age five, in her family’s compound in China in 1911, she doesn’t want to have her feet bound, especially after Second Sister shows Ailin her own bound feet and tells her how much it hurts. Ailin can see already how bound feet will restrict her movements, and prevent her from running and playing. Her father takes the revolutionary step of permitting her to leave her feet alone, even though the family of Ailin’s betrothed then breaks off the engagement. Ailin goes to the missionary school and learns English; when her father dies and her uncle cuts off funds for tuition, she leaves her family to become a nanny for an American missionary couple’s children. She learns all the daily household chores that were done by servants in her own home, and finds herself, painfully, cut off from her own culture and separate from the Americans. At 16, she decides to go with the missionaries when they return to San Francisco, where she meets and marries another Chinese immigrant who starts his own restaurant. The metaphor of things bound and unbound is a ribbon winding through this vivid narrative; the story moves swiftly, while Ailin is a brave and engaging heroine whose difficult choices reflect her time and her gender. (Fiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-32666-1
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
For a girl who is—by most standards—not perceived to be extraordinary, it is not easy living with a family of beautiful people. Jennifer Thayer both envies and resents her gourmet restaurateur/salad-dressing entrepreneur father, her industrial- psychologist mother who seems to care more about her work than about her younger daughter, and especially older sister Cass: lovely, talented, brainy, and preparing for marriage. Desperate for attention, Jennifer fakes an attempted rape, and at first, it works; for once in her life she is at center stage. Soon, however, the detective on the case figures out that something in the girl’s story isn’t right, and suspects that Jennifer’s mother has been abusing her. Caught up in the net of lies, Jennifer has to decide whether or not she can live with a growing sense of shame and guilt. Once again, Cadnum (Heat, 1998, etc.) has dissected the mind of one of society’s troubled young people, who has everything on the surface but is desperately trying to fill an unnamed emptiness. Deep, dark, and moving, this is a model tale of adolescent uneasiness set amid the roiling emotions of modern life. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88377-8
Page Count: 167
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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