Sixteen-year-old Ted’s new to foster care, but not new to being unwanted. In his old high school, he was bullied, and his now-dead parents cared more about the animals they sold than they ever cared about their own son. At first, his new foster home seems like it will be just another terrible time in Ted’s life. Foster-father Mr. Rafter is mildly racist, while Mrs. Rafter likes to breast feed a plastic doll. There’s nobody Ted can communicate with, except the animals he’s always been able to speak with: dogs, cats, the giraffe at the zoo. But against all of his expectations, Ted starts to make friends with his foster brothers at the Rafter’s, and with a few girls at school. Ted’s life is far from perfect, but maybe he can rely on someone other than animals at last. The development of Ted, the slightly unreliable narrator—from sullen self-sufficient teen to tentative social animal—is heartwarmingly real, and the light magical touch adds a clever flavor to this appealing coming-of-age story. (Fiction. 13-15)
Pub Date: June 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7636-2705-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2007
Despite an obvious agenda, this probing study of an eighth grader’s battle with terror and frustration will hit readers close to home. The traumatized victim of a group grope at a New York swimming pool, Gina has moved with her mother to Santa Barbara, hoping to fit unobtrusively into a new school, a new life. It’s not to be: not only does word of the assault get out (and, as usual, “assault” is immediately accepted as a euphemism for “rape”), it combines with her unusually early physical development to make her a target of knowing looks and invidious rumors. Feeling powerless to set the record straight, Gina attempts to wait the gossip out. Neufeld (Gaps in Stone Walls, 1996, etc.) switches between Gina’s struggle to pin down why boys misread her so completely, and the schemes of a trio of trash-talking classmates to rape her; while the frequently shifting points of view make it hard to keep characters straight, the author puts words in their mouths and thoughts in their heads that will make many readers nod—or squirm—in recognition. In the end, one boy makes the attempt alone, Gina fights him off, and when he swaggers into school claiming to have scored, she launches a devastating counterattack by standing up in class and describing what happened in precise detail. The story may be issue-heavy, but everyone displays conflicting emotions, and both good judgment and bad. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7894-2624-2
Page Count: 164
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
Revisiting characters from The Cook’s Family (1998), Yep again explores personal and cultural conflicts arising between the generations in a Chinese-American family. Suddenly saddled with caring for four younger siblings after a wealthy businessman hires her widowed mother as a governess—or amah—for his daughter, Stephanie, Amy Chin is forced to miss several ballet rehearsals for Cinderella, to listen to glowing accounts of Stephanie’s sophistication, and to accept expensive clothing and other gifts from her. While gaining new insight into how Cinderella’s stepsisters must have felt, Amy’s understandable resentment is compounded by the news that Stephanie will be moving in while her father is away on a trip. Yep builds that feeling to fever pitch, then dispels it by casting Stephanie as a lonely child hurt by one parent’s death and the other’s neglect; becoming friends, Stephanie and Amy clear the air and mend some fences with their well-meaning parents in a climactic face-off. The characters, most of them familiar from previous appearances, are distinct if not particularly complex, the San Francisco setting is vividly drawn, and the issues are laid out in plain terms and tidily resolved. It’s formulaic, but not entirely superficial. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23040-8
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
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