More than a thoughtful ode to found family, this slim, sweet novel challenges readers to look anew at the ones they have.
“What if you could just invent your family, your home, your life?”
There are times 13-year-old Lynn wishes she could do just that—like right now. Her feckless, New Age–y mom has just ended her relationship with solid, dependable Clive, lost her job and, worst of all, totally forgotten to get Lynn’s passport, so Lynn can’t go to Choirfest in Portland. Marooned without her BFFs, the Vancouver teen finds an unexpected friend in Blossom, a mysterious girl who saves her with the Heimlich at a bus stop. She leads Lynn down something of a rabbit hole to her home—a cozy, makeshift shelter in a park—where she lives with a dog, her two brothers and a man called Fossick, who is not her father legally or biologically but who is thoroughly devoted. Ellis tackles big themes—loyalty, legality, responsibility, family—with a sure, steady hand, allowing Lynn and readers to see the contrast between her situation and Blossom’s and to consider the many threads of relationship that make a family. Both girls’ homes and security are tenuous, though in very different ways, and both are effectively powerless. As Lynn falls in love with the magical, quasi-legal underworld that Blossom inhabits, layers of betrayal threaten it, and everyone shares culpability.
More than a thoughtful ode to found family, this slim, sweet novel challenges readers to look anew at the ones they have. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-55498-367-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when...
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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