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FATHER FIGURE

Name: FATHER FIGURE
Author: Richard Peck
ISBN: 0812423224

by Richard Peck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1978

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Jim Atwater doesn't show much reaction to the suicide of his terminally ill mother, but he does, insidiously, grow more and more possessively protective toward his little brother when the two boys are left alone in the large, fading Brooklyn Heights home of their proper stiff-lipped grandmother. Then Grandmother sends them off for the summer to their father, whom Jim understandably resents for having split when Byron, now eight, was a baby; once in Florida, Jim resents Dad even more for any fatherly gesture he makes toward Byron. Ironically, it is bombing out with Dad's waitress girlfriend that allows Jim to open up—just a crack—toward his father. Thus the air is a little clearer, and so is Jim's head, when he returns to New York for his senior year—willing at last to let go of Byron, who has taken to the barefoot life and decided to stay on with Dad. Jim tells the story in a clipped first person that reflects his veneer of cool; it also reflects a certain slickness on Peck's part—but not enough to invalidate his generally well-drawn relationships.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1978

ISBN: 0812423224

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BEST MAN
by Richard Peck

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MOUSE WITH THE QUESTION MARK TAIL
by Richard Peck ; illustrated by Kelly Murphy

- BOOK REVIEW
SECRETS AT SEA
by Richard Peck illustrated by Kelly Murphy

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WOODSONG

by Gary Paulsen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1990

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A three-time Newbery Honor winner tells—in a memoir that is even more immediate and compelling than his novels—about his intimate relationship with Minnesota's north woods and the dog team he trained for Alaska's Iditarod.

Beginning with a violent natural incident (a doe killed by wolves) that spurred his own conversion from hunter and trapper to observing habitant of the forest, Paulsen draws a vivid picture of his wilderness life—where bears routinely help themselves to his dog's food and where his fiercely protective bantam adopts a nestful of quail chicks and then terrorizes the household for an entire summer. The incidents he recounts are marvelous. Built of concrete detail, often with a subtext of irony or mystery, they unite in a modest but telling self-portrait of a man who has learned by opening himself to nature—not to idyllic, sentimental nature, but to the harsh, bloody, life-giving real thing. Like nature, the dogs are uncontrollable: independent, wildly individual, yet loyal and dedicated to their task. It takes extraordinary flexibility, courage, and generosity to accept their difficult strengths and make them a team: Paulsen sees humor in their mischief and has learned (almost at the cost of his life) that rigid discipline is irrelevant, even dangerous. This wonderful book concludes with a mesmerizing, day-by-day account of Paulsen's first Iditarod—a thrilling, dangerous journey he was so reluctant to end that he almost turned back within sight of his goal. lt's almost as hard to come to the end of his journal.

This may be Paulsen's best book yet: it should delight and enthrall almost any reader.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1990

ISBN: 0-02-770221-9

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Bradbury

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1990

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ANIMALS

- BOOK REVIEW
NORTHWIND
by Gary Paulsen

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DAD
by Gary Paulsen

- BOOK REVIEW
GONE TO THE WOODS
by Gary Paulsen

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LOOKING FOR ALIBRANDI

by Melina Marchetta ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999

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In this Australian import, Marchetta gets the voice of teenage angst just right in a hormone saturated coming-of-age story. Josephine Alibrandi, 17 and of Italian descent, is torn between her traditional upbringing, embodied by both her immigrant grandmother and her overprotective mother, and the norms of teenage society. A scholarship student at an esteemed Catholic girls’ school, she struggles with feelings of inferiority not only because she’s poorer than the other students and an “ethnic,” but because her mother never married. These feelings are intensified when her father, whom she’s just met, enters and gradually becomes part of her life. As Josephine struggles to weave the disparate strands of her character into a cohesive tapestry of self, she discovers some unsavory family secrets, falls in love for the first time, copes with a friend’s suicide, and goes from being a follower to a leader. Although somewhat repetitive and overlong, this is a tender, convincing portrayal of a girl’s bumpy ride through late adolescence. Some of the Australian expressions may be unfamiliar to US readers, but the emotions translate perfectly. (Fiction. 13-15)