With a hospitalized heroin addict for a mother and facing the prospect of another new school, Molly Moberly, 12, is a stray who delivers in an abrupt and somewhat detached narrative the details of a year in her life. Molly has been sent to live with a relative by marriage, Aunt Fay. Next door is Will McKinney, a fellow stray living with his grandparents. The wistful, ingenuous narration gains strength as Molly meets the tale’s many eccentric characters; their actions have an impact on Molly even as their motives remain mostly unknown: A home-schooled child Molly befriends (“I could only wonder at Tracy having this much mother when I didn’t have any”) is badly burned after torching the public school; a wealthy, lonely woman Molly visits turns out to be her grandmother; the McKinneys—who had allowed people to think that Will’s father was in prison—have been taking care of him at home as he slowly dies of AIDS. The novel settles upon a host of difficult issues and then, indescribably, lets them go: When Will sustains a bloody injury while playing ball, the coach requests that he quit the team because other members are afraid of contracting HIV. Instead of countering this ignorance, Will retreats, and the issue is dropped, with only a few utterances of protest from Aunt Fay. The novel becomes something of a treatise about a generation of children who have been cast aside by their parents; with its compelling premises and Molly’s fragile but tautly convincing voice, it will be seized upon by Peck’s fans, but may leave them longing for more. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8037-2291-5
Page Count: 155
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
To win over a glamorous but unscrupulous girl, an unhappy youngster uses the household money and her mother’s credit card to buy her new chum the latest fashions. Taylor blames herself for the accident that killed her little sister and for her mother’s subsequent depression. The only bright spot in her life is her friendship with childhood buddies Sam and Sophie. But suddenly Sam and Sophie seem to be growing away from her, and the daily grind of cleaning, shopping, and cooking for herself and her despondent mother is taking its toll. So when Kat, a beautiful but troubled older shopaholic who aspires to model stardom, befriends her, Taylor is willing to bend her morals to keep her new pal happy. Although this largely gloomy story ends on an optimistic note for the protagonist, an all-pervasive sense of gray keeps the material flat and it fails to generate the emotional wallop that it should. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85138-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
After graduating from high school, sisters Keeba and Teesha Washington decide to turn their talent for hair-braiding into a business and open a beauty shop. Although eager for success, the newly minted African-American entrepreneurs of TeeKee’s Tresses are inexperienced and have to cope with a myriad of obstacles, including a dearth of customers, an unexpected rent increase, and malicious vandalism. Set in Hillbrook Houses, a down-at-the-heels housing project in Brooklyn, McDonald once again shows off her extraordinary ear for teenage street slang and ability to write convincing dialogue. Nonetheless, this rather modest Horatio Alger inspirational lacks focus and urgency. The piece has more characters than it can handle and the reader never becomes deeply involved in the girls’ struggle. It’s a shame, because McDonald’s message to kids—find a talent, then work hard to achieve a goal—is one that can’t be stated too often. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-374-39955-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
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