Stubborn naãvetÇ destroys a close interracial friendship in this long, turgid story from the author of Haveli (1993), set on Virginia's Eastern Shore. After finding the floating body of a migrant worker, Buck, 12, is horrified when his best friend, Tunes, becomes a suspect. Sure that the real killer is prosperous, respected Jumbo Rawlins, ``six foot seven, every inch lean, mean, and ill-intentioned,'' Buck urges Tunes to tell her side of the story. Instead, Tunes disappears. When Buck tracks her down, he's horrified to learn from her that Rawlins has been abusing her physically and sexually. Tunes tries to tell him that a black girl's word won't carry much weight against that of a white adult, but Buck is so convinced that justice will out that he persuades her to come out of hiding. As predicted, she's arrested and tried while Rawlins remains untouched; though not convicted, Tunes moves away and drops out of Buck's life forever. In matching smart, resourceful, opaque Tunes to innocent and blindly loyal Buck, Staples creates a telling contrast, but her penchant for explaining characters, relationships, and situations rather than showing them, plus a plot that wanders like the setting's swampy waterways, slows the pace; ambiguities in Tunes's story, plus Buck's disillusioned, now-it's-five-years-later-and- life-goes-on finish, are puzzling. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1996
ISBN: 0-374-31694-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
The exodus of the Jews is breaking Dani’s heart: the exodus from Buenos Aires, that is. The 2001 Argentinian currency crisis has destroyed Buenos Aires’s economy, and all of Dani’s friends are moving to Israel or the United States. Dani’s own family, devastated by poverty and her father’s overwhelming depression, is headed to New York. There, in a wealthy suburb, Dani struggles to make friends in a huge, English-speaking public high school. Dani’s high-school problems follow a checklist of issues: autistic friend, mean popular girl, long-distance boyfriend hiding his new romance. The supporting characters act mostly as set dressing—from the bully who vanishes as soon as he has provoked another character’s redemption to the friend from ESL class who has no nationality or history of her own—and the comforting solutions are too pat. Enjoyable enough, so keep this on the shelf to fight misconceptions about terrorism, poverty, immigration and Jews—but don’t expect readers to come begging for more. (Historical fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-15144-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
In an age of missing children, Kehret (The Blizzard Disaster, 1998, etc.) spins an exciting tale about a deranged mother and the child—not hers’she stalks. Ginger has long had the feeling that somebody is watching her; during her 13th birthday party in a restaurant, she sees a strange woman staring at her, who also appears to write down the license plate number when Ginger’s family drives away. Questions nag at Ginger but she brushes them off, facing other, more ordinary problems. A meddlesome parent, Mrs. Vaughn, is trying to get Mr. Wren, Ginger’s basketball coach, fired; wanting more playing time for her own daughter, Mrs. Vaughn has concocted a list of complaints, claiming that Mr. Wren doesn’t teach basic skills. Ginger, an aspiring sports announcer, has videotaped many of the practices and has the evidence to prove Mrs. Vaughn wrong, but is afraid—as is most of the community—of getting on the woman’s wrong side. The stalking of Ginger, her near-kidnapping, and her attempt to live honorably by coming forward to save Mr. Wren converge in a dramatic climax. While the story reads like a thriller, the character development and moral dilemmas add depth and substance. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-525-46153-1
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
