A wry, loosely knit story of a British teenager who experiments with running away. Sent to boarding school in an effort to boost his grades, Nicky learns that his parents are pulling apart; when he comes home hoping to mend matters, he sees his dad wining and dining a secretary. Disgusted almost as much by the clichÇ as by the situation, Nicky moves into an abandoned house with a colony of squatters—felons all, except for Carla, the leader's attractive black moll; becomes a car thief, falls in with a quirky street-person, and, finally, weary and ragged, calls his distraught parents to bring him home. There's little violence here, but there's also little tension; meanwhile, the characters are standard issue: one school bully, one adolescent older sister, one burglar, one drug dealer, one prostitute (the last two work entirely offstage). Nicky is more aware of the squalor and discomfort he encounters than the perils of street life, and all he has to show for his experience is an invitation from Carla to look her up in a few years. The danger and cast of runaways in Nelson's The Beggar's Ride (1992) are far more vividly drawn. (Fiction. 11- 13)
Pub Date: April 30, 1993
ISBN: 0-02-710685-3
Page Count: 140
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION
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In a meditative interracial love story with a wrenching climactic twist, Woodson (The House You Pass on the Way, 1997, etc.) offers an appealing pair of teenagers and plenty of intellectual grist, before ending her story with a senseless act of violence.
Jeremiah and Elisha bond from the moment they collide in the hall of their Manhattan prep school: He’s the only child of celebrity parents; she’s the youngest by ten years in a large family. Not only sharply sensitive to the reactions of those around them, Ellie and Miah also discover depths and complexities in their own intense feelings that connect clearly to their experiences, their social environment, and their own characters. In quiet conversations and encounters, Woodson perceptively explores varieties of love, trust, and friendship, as she develops well-articulated histories for both families. Suddenly Miah, forgetting his father’s warning never to be seen running in a white neighborhood, exuberantly dashes into a park and is shot down by police. The parting thought that, willy-nilly, time moves on will be a colder comfort for stunned readers than it evidently is for Ellie.
Miah’s melodramatic death overshadows a tale as rich in social and personal insight as any of Woodson’s previous books. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-23112-9
Page Count: 181
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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The rebellion against an evil archmage and his bowler-topped minions wends its way to a climax.
Dispatching five baddies on the first two pages alone, wand-waving villain-exterminator Vega Jane gathers a motley army of fellow magicals, ghosts, and muggles—sorry, “Wugmorts”—for a final assault on Necro and his natty Maladons. As Necro repeatedly proves to be both smarter and more powerful than Vega Jane, things generally go badly for the rebels, who end up losing their hidden refuge, many of their best fighters, and even the final battle. Baldacci is plainly up on his ancient Greek theatrical conventions, however; just as all hope is lost, a divinity literally descends from the ceiling to referee a winner-take-all duel, and thanks to an earlier ritual that (she and readers learn) gives her a do-over if she’s killed (a second deus ex machina!), Vega Jane comes away with a win…not to mention an engagement ring to go with the magic one that makes her invisible and a new dog, just like the one that died heroically. Measuring up to the plot’s low bar, the narrative too reads like low-grade fanfic, being laden with references to past events, characters who only supposedly died, and such lines as “a spurt of blood shot out from my forehead,” “they started falling at a rapid number,” and “[h]is statement struck me on a number of levels.”
Awful on a number of levels—but tidily over at last. (glossary) (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-26393-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2019
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