A compassionate and well-rounded picture of refugee life.
After fleeing Burma by boat, 11-year-old Samira and her Rohingya family are settling into their new life in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in 2012.
Samira is glad she can help support her family by selling hard-boiled eggs on the nearby beach but longs to attend school. But even if they didn’t desperately need the money Samira contributes, her father believes that, given their future opportunities, education only benefits boys. Because the refugee camps for Rohingyas escaping brutal persecution are full, Samira and her family are unregistered people. Despite hoping for better treatment in a predominantly Muslim country, they must live outside the camp, are banned from formal employment, and find that some locals resent their presence. Samira misses her family back home and her best friend, whose whereabouts are unknown. She makes friends with a group of Rohingya and Bangladeshi surfers, and the announcement of a surfing contest with a cash prize motivates her to overcome her fear of the water and learn too; winning could prove to her family that girls, like boys, can change their families’ fortunes. Azim’s charming illustrations bring Samira’s world to life, showing the beauty of the natural surroundings and her childlike enthusiasm. This novel is peopled with layered, fully formed characters who experience trauma and triumph in equal measure. Samira’s internal growth and changing relationships are well plotted, and her narratorial voice is earnest and bold.
A compassionate and well-rounded picture of refugee life. (author's note, further reading) (Verse novel. 9-14)Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984816-19-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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