This quiet debut with a powerful message leaves readers plenty to ponder.
The departure of an alternative school’s empathetic teacher leaves her vulnerable students feeling bereft.
Creighton was 5 in 1989 when his mom left to pursue a singing career. Now 14, he and his emotionally distant dad settle in Breton, British Columbia. Behind in school and socially disengaged, Creighton enrolls in a tiny alternative school for students whose burdens include family dysfunction, poverty, abuse, and trauma. Bolstering students’ self-esteem, validating them, and helping them explore their interests, Ms. Hayworth prioritizes emotional needs over a strict academic agenda or punitive discipline. Slowly and unevenly, each young person—even bully Carlos—begins to heal. Creighton befriends traumatized Schooner and bonds with two older teens: sexual-assault survivor Carin, whose single mom has cancer, and Ratchet, sheltered and employed by a caring farmer after being taken from his abusive parents. These relationships anchor Creighton and help strengthen his relationship with his dad. But when Ms. Hayworth goes on maternity leave and is replaced by an affectless, uncaring teacher, the students relapse and catastrophe looms. The narrative pacing is slow but purposeful. The memorable characters, all cued as White, are drawn with affection and are scarred, flawed, and fully human. Their needs are great, their expectations modest as they hunger for connection and security. As Ms. Hayworth says, “it’s hard to give to others what you haven’t received yourself.”
This quiet debut with a powerful message leaves readers plenty to ponder. (author Q&A) (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-88995-638-4
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Fast-moving and intriguing though inconsistent on multiple fronts.
Kids endure rigorous competition aboard a spaceship.
When Babel Communications invites 10 teens to participate in “the most serious space exploration known to mankind,” Emmett signs on. Surely it’s the jackpot: they’ll each receive $50,000 every month for life, and Emmett’s mother will get a kidney transplant, otherwise impossible for poor people. They head through space toward the planet Eden, where they’ll mine a substance called nyxia, “the new black gold.” En route, the corporation forces them into brutal competition with one another—fighting, running through violent virtual reality racecourses, and manipulating nyxia, which can become almost anything. It even forms language-translating facemasks, allowing Emmett, a black boy from Detroit, to communicate with competitors from other countries. Emmett's initial understanding of his own blackness may throw readers off, but a black protagonist in outer space is welcome. Awkward moments in the smattering of black vernacular are rare. Textual descriptions can be scanty; however, copious action and a reality TV atmosphere (the scoreboard shows regularly) make the pace flow. Emmett’s first-person voice is immediate and innocent: he realizes that Babel’s ruthless and coldblooded but doesn’t apply that to his understanding of what’s really going on. Readers will guess more than he does, though most confirmation waits for the next installment—this ends on a cliffhanger.
Fast-moving and intriguing though inconsistent on multiple fronts. (Science fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-55679-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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