Nate will sing and dance his way right into readers’ hearts. This is an encore performance that will leave them standing in...
Goodbye, Jankburg…hello, Broadway! Thirteen-year-old Nate Foster is back (Better Nate Than Ever, 2013) in all his hilarious, vulnerable and heartwarming glory and headed “home” to the Great White Way.
Cast as Alien Number Seven and the understudy to E.T.’s understudy in the hotly anticipated E.T.: The Musical, Nate is prepared to do whatever it takes to make his dreams come true—even if it means a lot more cardio than he’d ever imagined. Nate navigates the rocky terrain of pushy child stars, stage momzillas and secret admirers with a wit and charm well beyond his years. Readers of the first book will be delighted at the continuation of Nate’s practice of substituting names of Broadway flops as swearwords, which he kindly explains for the uninitiated. While humor is clearly one of Federle’s strengths, what sets this novel apart is how beautifully he explores Nate’s vulnerabilities, particularly with regard to his sexuality, his family and his own self-esteem. Lines such as, “I never sit when I’m on the phone with Dad, because it’s the only time I get to practice what it feels like to stand up to him,” speak volumes about Nate and will surely resonate with any reader who has ever felt out of place in his own home…or in his own skin.
Nate will sing and dance his way right into readers’ hearts. This is an encore performance that will leave them standing in the aisles. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4693-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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