A hard-hitting and ultimately insightful tale of adolescent woe.
Samuels’ middle-grade novel centers on a young teenager’s thorny relationship with a bully.
Thirteen-year-old Charlie has known his schoolmate Mark since they were both 9, and they’ve always been casual acquaintances. Then one day, for no clear reason, Mark starts bullying Charlie relentlessly and even convinces other students to harass and ridicule Charlie every Friday (or “Charlie Day,” as Mark calls it). Charlie initially sees summer vacation as a welcome relief from the abuse—but then Mark shows up at Charlie’s apartment and says that he wants to be friends. Charlie is initially wary but decides to give it a try. The problem is that Mark frequently berates Charlie, insisting that he’s immature—or “acting like a baby,” as he puts it. He also makes bizarre demands, such as suddenly insisting that Charlie immediately take a shower. Charlie, who has no friends, oscillates between frustration with the situation and thinking that he might have somehow brought Mark’s horrible treatment on himself. “Why was he doing this?” Charlie wonders at one point, but it takes some time for him to finally get an answer. Samuels’ story is often dire; Charlie, who narrates, hopes on a daily basis that Mark’s “bad attitude” won’t resurface, and some of what Mark does is quite disturbing and will likely make many readers uncomfortable, as will the fact that Charlie continually agrees to spend time with an unpredictable bully who humiliates him, privately and publicly, at random intervals. Overall, though, it’s an effectively understated novella that allows for multiple interpretations, and readers get a better understanding of each of the main characters by the end. The author’s prose also effectively reads like the thoughts of a bright 13-year-old: “He was being stubborn for no reason at all. I guessed he was trying to see if he could get me to panic, so I kept taking deep breaths and concentrated on waiting him out.”
A hard-hitting and ultimately insightful tale of adolescent woe.Pub Date: May 2, 2024
ISBN: 9798987329290
Page Count: 127
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
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