A teenager reluctantly learns to face forward rather than back in this refreshing, unusually perceptive debut. The winds of change are blowing bitterly around 15-year-old Haven as her parents break up, her father marries a younger woman, her sister Ashley turns into a termagant as her wedding approaches, and her own body becomes a stranger, topping 5' 11'' in a sustained growth spurt. To shield herself, Haven clings to the memory of a summer vacation to Virginia Beach three years ago, when her family was still together and Sumner Lee, the best of Ashley's legion of boyfriends, came along. Suddenly, Sumner is back, as charming and comforting as ever; can he rekindle that memory's magic? Displaying a flair for evocative names and well-timed plot twists, Dessen takes her tall and usually levelheaded teen through two weddings and a succession of disturbing, often comic, surprises, to a climactic explosion. Haven enjoys a nicely articulated love/hate relationship with her sister, ostensibly a superficial cheerleader type who turns out to be wiser than she seems; she helps Haven shake off her dependence on a memory (not entirely accurate, as it turns out) of idyllic happiness. Seeing everyone else building new lives, Haven starts to think about her own future, too. A worthy theme, but the chief attractions here are the appealing cast and droll humor. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-531-09538-X
Page Count: 198
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK TO SCREEN
The poster boy for relentless mischief-makers everywhere, first encountered in No, David! (1998), gives his weary mother a rest by going to school. Naturally, he’s tardy, and that’s but the first in a long string of offenses—“Sit down, David! Keep your hands to yourself! PAY ATTENTION!”—that culminates in an afterschool stint. Children will, of course, recognize every line of the text and every one of David’s moves, and although he doesn’t exhibit the larger- than-life quality that made him a tall-tale anti-hero in his first appearance, his round-headed, gap-toothed enthusiasm is still endearing. For all his disruptive behavior, he shows not a trace of malice, and it’ll be easy for readers to want to encourage his further exploits. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-48087-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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