An imperfect but admirably frank exploration of the challenges of integration in the late 1960s.
The white son of a minister active in the civil rights movement is forced to question the values he grew up with after he begins attending a mostly African-American high school in turbulent 1969 Chicago.
Shiflett (Hidden Place, 2004) tells the story of 14-year-old Simon Fleming, a white student who believes in integration—he participates in a boycott to end racist policies at the school—but whose skin color also makes him a frequent target of bullying and violence. After he tries to stop a group of black boys from beating another white student, he's rescued by a racist school cop, Officer Clark, who offers him protection in exchange for intel on the boycott. Other central characters include Clyde, a black classmate who tries to keep Simon out of trouble, and Simon’s father, Adam, whose own commitment to civil rights blinds him, at least at first, to the challenges his son faces. Most effectively (and affectingly) drawn among the supporting cast is Louis, a mercurial and often drug-addled classmate. Louis’ own minister father was killed while advocating for civil rights, and it is Louis’ complicated relationship with Simon that gives the novel’s most powerful moments their weight. Shiflett tends to let his scenes go long, and some plot elements feel overly familiar (Officer Clark’s act wears thin quickly, Simon’s requisite love interest isn’t given much to do). Still, Shiflett does a nice job illuminating a complex situation from multiple perspectives, and readers will find the book’s brisk final third—when various plotlines coalesce around rioting at the school—difficult to put down.
An imperfect but admirably frank exploration of the challenges of integration in the late 1960s.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-613-73560-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Academy Chicago
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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