A warmhearted story that will resonate with anyone who has ever dreamed of reinventing themselves.
An old journal gives a teen the ability to control the narrative of her life—but at what cost?
Gracie is a lover of words and stories. Her imagined life on the page is so much more appealing than her real one. Reality means divorced parents and a new start in Pittsburgh as she begins her junior year of high school, now that Alzheimer’s disease prevents Katherine, her maternal grandmother, from living alone. Gracie, while idly exploring Katherine’s vanity, discovers a velvet-covered journal. Unable to resist the lure of its blank pages, she begins penning her stories there—and soon realizes that the stories are moving beyond the pages and into the real world. What initially seems like a boon has unexpected ramifications: Having seen how Alzheimer’s disease has affected Katherine’s memories, Gracie belatedly realizes the impact her stories are having on those around her. She grapples with whether a developing romance is genuine or the artificial result of her stories. Takaoka skillfully portrays teen interactions, as well as the messiness and love of family members caring for a relative with Alzheimer’s disease. She grounds readers in Gracie’s 1987 world, from an immersive midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show to Orange Juliuses at the local mall, landline phones, and Aqua Net. Main characters are cued white.
A warmhearted story that will resonate with anyone who has ever dreamed of reinventing themselves. (author’s note) (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9781536228786
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0142413836
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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