Cormier (Tenderness, 1997, etc.) again poses a set of chewy moral dilemmas, but he develops them within a sketchy plot more suited to the short-story form. Francis Cassavant returns to Frenchtown after WWII with a Silver Star, with much of his face blown away by a grenade on which he threw himself, and a fixed intention to kill Larry LaSalle. While he waits for Larry, a war hero with a Silver Star of his own, to return from the service, Francis wanders the streets and relives the past: Strong and handsome, Larry had been a hero even before the war, brilliant at bringing out talents in young people, turning shy, unathletic Francis into a table-tennis champ, with enough self-confidence to date lovely classmate Nicole Renard; two years later, back on a triumphant furlough, Larry raped Nicole as Francis stood by in the next room. While Francis’s shocking opening description of what’s left of his face will churn many stomachs, his long wait for Larry is more tedious than tension-building, and the weary tone of his narrative puts a dreary cast over his observations of a post-war world. To readers familiar with Cormier’s work, the climactic confrontation will hold few, if any, surprises. More a deliberately constructed intellectual exercise on the ambiguities of heroism than a story with flesh and blood characters—and, surprising for this author, spelled out as such—this will disappoint readers hoping for another Tenderness. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-32590-8
Page Count: 135
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
Death isn’t an easy subject to write about, but Shusterman handles it deftly, as he explores what happens to two children who are “lost” on their way “towards the light.” Nick and Allie have never met, but both are involved in a fatal car accident. They find they are neither living nor spirit; they now exist in Everlost. Learning to cope with their new state of being, they arrive in New York City, where a band of lost children have taken up residence in the Twin Towers, which still stand tall in Everlost. Led by Mary, the Queen of Snot, threatened by the Great McGill and his pirate band, these children have come to accept that this is where they belong and will always be. But Nick and Allie know there must be something—somewhere—else, and they are determined to find out what and where that is. A quirky sense of humor pervades, which helps to lighten what would otherwise be a disturbing concept. But the overall message (that there is existence after life and purpose to that existence and a destination when one is finally ready for it) is one of comfort. For anyone who has lost a friend or loved one at an early age, this is a good read. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-689-87237-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2006
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in...
This is almost like a play for 18 voices, as Grimes (Stepping Out with Grandma Mac, not reviewed, etc.) moves her narration among a group of high school students in the Bronx.
The English teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wesley, his response to a month of reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Soon there’s an open-mike poetry reading, sponsored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then later, every week. The chapters in the students’ voices alternate with the poems read by that student, defiant, shy, terrified. All of them, black, Latino, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alienation endemic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appealing voices. Among them: Janelle, who is tired of being called fat; Leslie, who finds friendship in another who has lost her mom; Diondra, who hides her art from her father; Tyrone, who has faith in words and in his “moms”; Devon, whose love for books and jazz gets jeers. Beyond those capsules are rich and complex teens, and their tentative reaching out to each other increases as through the poems they also find more of themselves. Steve writes: “But hey! Joy / is not a crime, though / some people / make it seem so.”
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in the poetry. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2569-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
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