Despite some unfamiliar language, this bubbly piece of middle-grade Irish chick-lit will have no trouble crossing the pond. The lightly humorous and good-spirited tale—even the villains are only mildly mean—centers on a 13-year-old girl named Amy who is beset with a million persnickety problems and one awesome asset. Her problems include two complex stepfamilies, the desertion of her best friend to a higher-status crowd and her awakening feelings for an outsider boy. Her asset is Clover, her 17-year-old can-do aunt with a mission, which includes helping Amy with all of her difficulties even if it means creating some new ones. That mission derives from Clover's job as an "agony aunt" at a teen magazine, and with Amy firmly in tow, she goes out into the real world and attempts to solve her readers' problems, which frequently involves revenge. The story starts off slow and initially feels familiar, but as the characters and situations develop, it builds momentum, interest and fizz. Good fun. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5006-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
In a hellish country ruled by megalomaniac Keran Berj, Grace has been raised by the People, a freedom-fighting sect dedicated to the overthrow of Keran Berj, to be an Angel. Like the rest of the girls in Angel House, Grace trained for the sacred day when she would strap on a bomb in front of a political target and blow herself up. But Grace has never truly felt like a child of the People, and when the moment of truth comes, she chooses not to die—though she still sets off her bomb in the village square. Now she's on the run from her own people and from Keran Berj's. This brief, atmospheric novella follows Grace's train journey to the border of Keran Berj's country. Accompanied by the strange boy Kerr, Grace contemplates her own past, that of her homeland and the choices that led her to this moment. Moody and compelling, without the easy moralizing so common in dystopian settings. (Science fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-525-42206-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
Raisa's sister, Henda, has earned enough money to send for Raisa to join her in the goldineh medina of America. When Raisa arrives in 1910 New York from her Polish shtetl, she finds Henda missing. Responsible for supporting both herself and a newly orphaned toddler, Raisa finds a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Raisa's friends, described in language rich with the cadences of Yiddish, each have jealousies, loves and flaws; they're not mere trajectories toward tragedy. But tragedy does strike, with the real-life factory fire that killed 146 workers. Vivid description of the deaths—of workers trapped on higher floors or leaping from windows to choose a faster death—unavoidably invites comparisons with another, more recent tragedy. The comparison serves the novel well; when the prose isn't strong enough for sufficient horror, visceral memories of 9/11 will do the trick (at least for those readers old enough to remember). After some tear-jerking, the happy conclusion comes too suddenly—shockingly so. The journey, however, is satisfying enough on its own. (Historical fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-670-01245-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
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