From Seymour (We Played Marbles, p. 118, etc.), a subtle, smart novel that encourages analytical thinking with its combination of an effective narrative and perceptive characterizations. Bruce, 17, earns the title “Saint Bruce” from his friends at Carthage North High because he doesn’t drink, smoke, curse, or do anything wrong, but soon he’s forced to reflect on his saintly behavior. When a teacher solicits Bruce to rat on his four best friends for drinking in a classroom, the consequences spiral out of control, turning this outwardly plain novel into a cleverly affecting study of morality. Bruce is shunned by his smart yet supercilious pals, and they are suspended and will not graduate with the rest of the class. The reverberations continue when one friend has to suffer his father’s terrible temper and the delay of college, which his father will no longer be financing. Seymour crafts Bruce as a both alluring and repulsive figure (his frequent questioning of everything from convertibles to jukebox selections can be simultaneously trenchant and tiresome), while introducing other characters and their persuasive points of view without thrusting judgments upon readers. Bruce’s dilemma, his moral choices, and his wish to be an individual are sure to spark lively debates. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-531-30109-5
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
At once serious and playful, this tale of a teenager’s penitential journey to four corners of the country can be read on several levels. While attempting to kill himself on the highway after a humiliating social failure, Brent causes a fatal accident for another motorist, Lea Zamora. His sentence requires a personal act of atonement, if the victim’s family so desires; Lea’s mother hands him a bus pass and tells him to place pictorial whirligigs in Maine, Florida, Washington, and California as monuments to her daughter’s ability to make people smile. Brent sets out willingly, armed with plywood, new tools, and an old construction manual. Characteristically of Fleischman (Seedfolks, 1997, etc.), the narrative structure is unconventional: Among the chapters in which Brent constructs and places the contraptions are independent short stories that feature the whirligigs, playing significant roles in the lives of others. Brent encounters a variety of travelers and new thoughts on the road, and by the end has lost much of the sense of isolation that made his earlier aspirations to be one of the in-crowd so important. The economy of language and sustained intensity of feeling are as strongly reminiscent of Cynthia Rylant’s Missing May (1992) as are the wind toys and, at least in part, the theme, but Fleischman’s cast and mood are more varied, sometimes even comic, and it’s Brent’s long physical journey, paralleled by his inner one, that teaches him to look at the world and himself with new eyes. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-5582-7
Page Count: 133
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes
A gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.
Fifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. She looks forward to the day when she can join up and fight the Republic’s treacherous enemies east of the Dakotas. Day, on the other hand, is an anonymous street rat, a slum child who failed his own Trial. He's also the Republic's most wanted criminal, prone to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When tragedies strike both their families, the two brilliant teens are thrown into direct opposition. In alternating first-person narratives, Day and June experience coming-of-age adventures in the midst of spying, theft and daredevil combat. Their voices are distinct and richly drawn, from Day’s self-deprecating affection for others to June's Holmesian attention to detail. All the flavor of a post-apocalyptic setting—plagues, class warfare, maniacal soldiers—escalates to greater complexity while leaving space for further worldbuilding in the sequel.
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes . (Science fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK TO SCREEN
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