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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Susan—who now wants people to call her Sibyl—is 14 and fiercely angry. Readers find out right away that her sister Alison is gone, but not where, or why, although it is clear that the rest of the family is deeply wounded. As the story unfolds, Susan/Sibyl tries out for the drama club at the local boys' school—she and her friend Connie are thinking stage crew, but both end up in the cast. As daily life grinds on, readers meet Susan's troubled kid brother, her gentle stepfather, her gay dad, and her tightly wound mom. Susan is bitter and guilty and pushes hard against all of those who reach out to her, and we learn, in wrung-out bits, what Alison did and what she said and how she's probably dead. The denouement, which comes in a seriocomic run to a funeral parlor the night of the eighth-grade dance, feels a little forced, but the unfolding of Susan's family's anguish is done at just the right pace, with each shard of emotion placed precisely. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-618-04585-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
Downing constructs his children's-book debut around an odd, but riveting, premise: a young Colorado orphan finds fame, fortune, and a loving family thanks to a helping hand—literally—from Leonardo da Vinci. Leonard, or "Nard," as he prefers to be called, often finds ingenious ways to cope with his lack of a left hand (he was born that way), but his brain really goes into high gear when a detached hand scuttles up, takes a pencil, and proclaims in mirror writing that it's been waiting 500 years for him to be reincarnated, and now it's time to get down to the business of changing the world. Visions of big bucks and a national tour dance in Nard's head, but the hand, dubbed "Vinci," stubbornly counsels a higher purpose—and displays the speed and cleverness to stay out of Nard's reach until he sees the light. The author surrounds his spirited, basically good-hearted protagonist with an unconventional foster family for a strong, colorful supporting cast, stirs in a generous but not over-ambitious helping of subplots, and brings the tale to a (literally, again) soaring climax in which Nard's human-powered flying machine competes for a hefty prize. The plotting does tend toward the predictable, but it's grand entertainment, with an unalloyed happy ending and a memorable fantasy element to give it a leg up. So to speak. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-618-07893-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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