Fresh from leading the ScreeWee fleet across hostile game space and back to their own territory, Johnny Maxwell returns to champion a more local group of beings in need: the dead denizens of the local cemetery, slated for redevelopment into Modern Purpose-Designed Offices by United Amalgamated Consolidated Holdings. Pratchett’s cry against the needlessly tragic rejection of communities and their histories is just as passionate as was his cry against war in Only You Can Save Mankind (2004). Johnny allows himself to be conscripted by the dead, whom only he can see. They are an agreeable assortment of sweetly loony characters including a former Alderman, a suffragist, a socialist and an inventor, who, along with the rest of their fellows, represent the collective history and culture of Blackbury. If the narrative turns a bit preachy at times, kids will nevertheless find themselves won over by both the dead and Johnny’s basic sense of decency. Humor and honest pathos play off each other to make for an emotionally balanced whole, one whose resolution will be as satisfying to readers as it is to Johnny. (Fiction 10-14)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-054188-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure
A Prohibition-era child enlists a gifted pickpocket and a pair of budding circus performers in a clever ruse to save her ancestral home from being stolen by developers.
Rundell sets her iron-jawed protagonist on a seemingly impossible quest: to break into the ramshackle Hudson River castle from which her grieving grandfather has been abruptly evicted by unscrupulous con man Victor Sorrotore and recover a fabulously valuable hidden emerald. Laying out an elaborate scheme in a notebook that itself turns out to be an integral part of the ensuing caper, Vita, only slowed by a bout with polio years before, enlists a team of helpers. Silk, a light-fingered orphan, aspiring aerialist Samuel Kawadza, and Arkady, a Russian lad with a remarkable affinity for and with animals, all join her in a series of expeditions, mostly nocturnal, through and under Manhattan. The city never comes to life the way the human characters do (Vita, for instance, “had six kinds of smile, and five of them were real”) but often does have a tangible presence, and notwithstanding Vita’s encounter with a (rather anachronistically styled) “Latina” librarian, period attitudes toward race and class are convincingly drawn. Vita, Silk, and Arkady all present white; Samuel, a Shona immigrant from Southern Rhodesia, is the only primary character of color. Santoso’s vignettes of, mostly, animals and small items add occasional visual grace notes.
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure . (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1948-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
A heartwarming sports story showing a journey of personal growth.
A girl struggles with trying to make her father feel proud of her.
Eighth grader Rosie Vo has a lot on her plate when it comes to living up to her dad’s winning racquetball legacy. Despite her dislike of the sport, her father pushes her to play—he believes she isn’t motivated to do anything else, and anyway, he’s sure she will enjoy it if only she improves. The stakes are extra high with the annual tournament looming. Rosie, who is cued Asian, feels she cannot do anything well enough to satisfy her father’s expectations. After meeting and forming a fast friendship with racquetball enthusiast Blair, who just moved to town and reads Black, Rosie hatches a plan that she thinks will give both her and her father what they want. But after spending more time with Blair and her family, Rosie sees differences in the two families’ relationship styles that become a point of contention in their friendship. Blair’s parents are more supportive and less critical; Rosie even has fun playing racquetball with them. As Rosie works to overcome her intensely painful feelings, she initially pushes Blair away and finally opens up to her father. The bright, expressive illustrations burst from the pages, showing the intensity of both game play and interpersonal dynamics through the effective use of color and the characters’ exaggerated facial expressions.
A heartwarming sports story showing a journey of personal growth. (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250784148
Page Count: 256
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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