A fun YA read about the pressures of adolescence, and about cultivating a healthy attitude toward change.
In McCowan’s debut novel, a young girl copes with her parents’ divorce and her academic responsibilities, while struggling to define her own sense of identity.
Yolanda Phillips is just starting sixth grade, but she’s already feeling a great deal of pressure. Her parents have recently divorced and are still ironing out some of the finer points of their co-parenting responsibilities. They’re also attempting to redefine themselves as individuals: Her mother takes dance classes, and her father becomes a volunteer coach at her school. Meanwhile, she finds that the onset of puberty is changing the dynamics of her life, as male-female relationships become increasingly complicated. Her friends and older sister seem to be just a beat ahead of her in their physical development and newly romantic views. At school, Yolanda likes her new teacher, Mr. Jones, despite his no-nonsense approach. But she becomes mired in procrastination when he assigns the class a report: “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up.” Her friends seem sure of their future plans and confidently complete the assignment, but Yolanda must do some frantic self-analysis to determine who she is and what she wants from life. In the novel’s poignant climax, she acknowledges her passage into young adulthood, while also refusing to grow up too quickly. McCowan tells the story from Yolanda’s chatty, first-person point of view, and the book’s primary strength is the authenticity of that voice, as she energetically rambles through adolescent triumphs and travails. Yolanda is a charming creation: wary yet game, critical and questioning, without ever resorting to snarkiness. Her observations of her parents’ attempts at amicability (“They were making small talk, but I could tell it was different than before”) and of their post-divorce loneliness are touching. But although the author does a wonderful job of capturing the girl’s vivacious personality, younger readers may have difficulty envisioning some scenes due to the story’s overall lack of physical description.
A fun YA read about the pressures of adolescence, and about cultivating a healthy attitude toward change.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1478709619
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Outskirts Press Inc.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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