Twelve-year-old Gwen’s loving aunt has placed her in an institution. When readers first meet her, they find a thoughtful, but strange, child whose mind moves from clear reality to a somewhat mysterious take on the world around her. In the opening sequence, a bird drops a gold key into the garden under her dormitory window. When she goes outside to retrieve it, flouting the rules of the mental hospital, Gwen sets off a sequence of events that results in her eventual retreat into the world of the Earth Kitchen—a place of solitude, safety, and sanctuary from her memories and from daily life. The kitchen is furnished with the few articles from her past that comfort her, as well as some clues to what is going on in the ward. It’s the early 1960s, and Gwen has decided that her parents were killed in an atomic blast. Readers come to understand that it is this displacement of reality that has led to her institutionalization. The author artfully incorporates into the plot the terror of nuclear warfare, the less-affluent lifestyle, and comparative innocence of the pre-Vietnam era as well as that time’s attitudes toward and treatment of mental illness. Characterization is uneven; Gwen is fully realized, but the others revolve around her illness like figures floating on a mobile. Bryant uses language in an economical, lyrical way, especially in her depiction of the Earth Kitchen. This creates an exceptional sense of place, but because of Gwen’s illness, confusion can arise. Is there really a bird that drops a key? Is the Earth Kitchen really there? Despite these flaws, this is a suspenseful and thought-provoking piece of fiction and a promising debut. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-029605-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
Curtis debuts with a ten-year-old's lively account of his teenaged brother's ups and downs. Ken tries to make brother Byron out to be a real juvenile delinquent, but he comes across as more of a comic figure: getting stuck to the car when he kisses his image in a frozen side mirror, terrorized by his mother when she catches him playing with matches in the bathroom, earning a shaved head by coming home with a conk. In between, he defends Ken from a bully and buries a bird he kills by accident. Nonetheless, his parents decide that only a long stay with tough Grandma Sands will turn him around, so they all motor from Michigan to Alabama, arriving in time to witness the infamous September bombing of a Sunday school. Ken is funny and intelligent, but he gives readers a clearer sense of Byron's character than his own and seems strangely unaffected by his isolation and harassment (for his odd look—he has a lazy eye—and high reading level) at school. Curtis tries to shoehorn in more characters and subplots than the story will comfortably bear—as do many first novelists—but he creates a well-knit family and a narrator with a distinct, believable voice. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-32175-9
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-7868-2427-1 The content and concerns of Levy’s latest is at odds with the young reading level and large type size, which may prevent this novel’s natural audience of middle schoolers from finding a fast and funny read. In sixth grade, Rebecca broke her friend Scott’s toe at a dance. Now, in seventh grade, they are partners in a ballroom dance class, and they soon find they dance well together, but that makes Rebecca’s friend Samantha jealous. She gives a party during which spin-the-bottle is played, kissing Scott and then bullying him into being her boyfriend. While Rebecca deals with her mixed feelings about all this, she also has a crush on her dance instructor. Levy (My Life as a Fifth-Grade Comedian, 1997, etc.) has great comedic timing and writes with a depth of feeling to make early adolescent romantic travails engaging; she also comes through on the equally difficult feat of making ballroom dancing appealing to young teens. The obsession with kissing, pre-sexual tension, and sensuality of the dancing will be off-putting or engrossing, depending entirely on readers’ comfort levels with such conversations in real life as well as on the page. Precocious preteens will find that this humorously empathetic take on budding romance is just right. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7868-0498-X
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
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