A fresh, subtle take on timeless verities for young readers.
That most primal of ordeals–a lousy round of golf–imparts life lessons to a callow adolescent in this winsome coming-of-age fable.
When their mom nags him and his little brother Matt into signing up for a kids’ golf tournament, 14-year-old Sam Parma couldn’t be more put out. Golf, Sam reasons, is a game for fuddy-duddies, and with his hand-me-down ladies’ clubs he’ll hardly cut a fine figure, even on the ratty municipal course. Sam’s foursome is a panoply of irksome idiosyncrasies, including foul-mouthed Buzzy, who lies regularly about his score; hulking hooligan Mark, who’d rather drive his ball through a nearby house’s windowpane than into the cup; and rich-kid Chad, who’s actually a nice guy and an annoyingly good golfer. Once on the links, Sam suffers the trials of Job. He’s ambushed by sand traps and water hazards; his 3-wood disintegrates mid-swing; he has a scary run-in with what appears to be a one-armed fiend while searching for a lost ball; and his flubbing of two easy putts gets immortalized by a local TV-news crew. Trailing the cheating Buzzy and marauding Mark, crying out for justice and receiving none from the indifferent powers-that-be, Sam veers perilously close to the moral rough. Slipped into Rosa’s lighthearted tale is a serious exploration of the moral dilemmas faced by these quirky, appealing teen characters. A few sermonettes–“Improper grammar and verbal miscues create barriers for many people and prevent them from higher levels of achievement”–seem canned and a bit off. But most of the precepts Sam learns–lonely are the brave; it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game; with a little luck and a lot of concentration, once in a while you can hit par–fall gracefully from the story.
A fresh, subtle take on timeless verities for young readers.Pub Date: March 18, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-60528-002-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Set in 1878, Rinaldi’s latest work of historical fiction is at once enlightening and highly engrossing. After the untimely death of her mother, Lizzy’s father leaves her in Santa Fe at a convent school. With a healthy sense of irony, Lizzy often finds the convent ways absurd. While many of the girls seek visions of the Virgin Mary, Lizzy is a nonbeliever and without affectation. The girls ostracize her, so she finds friendship with an odd assortment of people, including a homeless, old carpenter in need of food and shelter. Lizzy convinces the Bishop to hire the carpenter to build a badly needed staircase for the new choir loft. The other students resent the carpenter, however, as they await the appearance of a staircase through a miracle of St. Joseph. As the wait lengthens and tempers flare, Lizzy’s roommate and nemesis cruelly blinds Lizzy’s kitten. The carpenter offers many words of gentle comfort to Lizzy and soothes her wounded kitten. The carpenter is finally permitted to finish his work, and the kitten, against odds, regains its sight. The entire town is awestruck by the incomparable beauty of the spiral staircase, but the carpenter vanishes without even collecting his pay. Lizzy is never converted to Catholicism, but she and the reader are left to ponder the nature of miracles and human kindness. It is a pleasure to accompany Lizzy throughout this tale thrumming with mini-adventures and vivid characters. (author’s note, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-202430-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
Sea Pines, a.k.a. Sick Minds, treats teenaged girls with food- and substance-abuse issues, and Callie, whose issue is self-mutilation. She will not talk about her dysfunctional family, her guilt toward her brother Sam’s severe asthma, or why she cuts herself. She will not talk—period. Cut is Callie’s interior monologue that alternates between her interactions with her therapist and her interactions with the other residents, the staff, and her family. Her thought process reveals a girl who seems to have given up on life until one cut scares the life back into her. The ability to talk then becomes a metaphor for Callie’s ability to understand herself and to begin the healing process. Readers are also treated to the downfalls and triumphs of Callie’s peers, including a new resident who shares Callie’s affliction. First-timer McCormick tackles a side of mental illness that is rarely seen in young-adult literature in a believable and sensitive manner. Unlike other authors of this genre, she avoids stereotypes and blends gentle humor with this serious topic. McCormick ultimately portrays Callie as a normal teenager who yearns for a stable family structure and friends, and who also has a psychological problem. A thoughtful look at teenage mental illness and recovery. (Fiction. 13-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2000
ISBN: 1-886910-61-8
Page Count: 168
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
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