A tale without a tidy end, all the more tragic for being told in such a simple, low-key way
The spare, heartbreaking tale of four children struggling to make do after their mother abandons them in a Tokyo apartment.
Smuggled into a “No Children” flat and forbidden to go to school or even venture outdoors except to run quick errands, Akira, Kyoko, Shigeru and Yuki—12, 10, 8 and 4 respectively—live for their hard-partying mother’s increasingly rare appearances. By winter, she and the money she occasionally sends are gone completely, but the children, knowing that they would be split up if they asked openly for help, remain in hiding—even after Yuki, the youngest, takes a fatal fall and is quietly, sadly buried in a suitcase with chocolates and her favorite toy. Tanaka’s narrative is a novelization of a 2004 Japanese film inspired by true events; though the children’s situation would probably not have gone unremarked so long in this country, there is certainly a universal element in her observation that “[n]obody seemed to notice four kids living on their own right under their noses. It was as though the children were invisible.” Yuki’s death isn’t the only shocker here, but the author consistently describes disturbing incidents in oblique ways and, echoed in the film stills thinly scattered throughout, adopts a tone more poignant than outraged.
A tale without a tidy end, all the more tragic for being told in such a simple, low-key way . (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55498-140-3
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2012
While 11 is a time in a girl’s life when her body is undergoing changes, Linnet’s physical changes are highly unusual—she is growing wings. To her amazement, this bizarre fact doesn’t surprise her mother Sarah, who it turns out also had wings at Linnet’s age. But Linnet’s grandmother had cut off Sarah’s wings, not being able to imagine her navigating her way though life with them. After the school term ends, Linnet insists on going to look for, as she puts it, “anyone else like me.” After several days of travel and after being abandoned by her mother, Linnet ends up at her grandmother’s, who takes Linnet to an isolated house way up in the mountains, a secret place where other winged people live. Safe in the community of others like herself, Linnet and one of the others, Andy, try to teach themselves to fly but for various aeronautical reasons, they are both unable to. Linnet and Andy finally realize that they are unwilling to hide for the rest of their lives, even if it means being called freaks by intolerant people. The two kids decide to take their chances in the outside world with non-winged people. Oddly, there is not much explanation and surprisingly little discussion in the book about how and why these particular people grew wings and what the significance is. While a few theories are bandied about, none are really explored. The plot and characterizations are not skillfully crafted enough to allow a suspension of disbelief, and the book veers towards pomposity, seemingly raising weighty, philosophical themes, but never really taking flight. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-618-07405-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
A compassionate portrait of a family struggling with painful changes, despite some heavy-handed moments.
Cassie’s whole world changes when her beloved older brother, Sef, goes to war in Iraq.
Before Sef even leaves, Cassie has nightmares about his demise. Once he’s gone, her family jumps at every phone call. To complicate matters, her father supports the war; her mother doesn’t. While her parents are preoccupied, her best friend, Sonia, inexplicably stops talking to her; her older sister, Van, tests out risky behaviors; and her developmentally delayed younger brother, Jack, becomes altogether silent. When a seventh-grade social-studies project leads her to a blog called Blue Sky, written by an Iraqi girl of similar age, Cassie starts to see the war from a different perspective. Blue Sky’s world is more literally torn apart—her city is destroyed, her family is terrorized, their home is often without electricity and running water. While Sullivan strives to raise difficult questions about American involvement in Iraq, some efforts come across as forced. Yet Cassie's first-person narration effectively captures the messiness of life in a loving family when outside-world events intervene. Through it all, Cassie discovers her own strengths and rallies everyone around her, just as Sef would have wanted her to do.
A compassionate portrait of a family struggling with painful changes, despite some heavy-handed moments. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25684-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
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