A violent, madcap, frequently entertaining scramble.
After years hiding out in plain sight, a royal heir sparks a revolution in his conquered city.
Despite brutal repression, rebellion is already simmering in Khul, renamed “Slave City” after the bloody invasion by the lighter-skinned Policy Makers six years before. When the arrival of the Policy Makers’ imperial Roc and his 13-year-old daughter, Fidelis, on a state visit sets off a coup attempt by his own subordinates, events escalate. The whirl of intrigue and increasing tensions catches up young Avtar—disguised since the murder of his royal parents as a flour-covered “Ghosty Boy” in the castle bakery—and culminates in a wild series of attacks, betrayals, chases, revelations, encounters on hidden staircases and improbable alliances. Just for fun, Jones also stirs in a flatulent lap dog and a prank that sends most of the Roc’s entourage hustling for the toilets, as well as providing amusing interchanges aplenty (“ ‘Did he really call me an untrusting cow?’…‘Who’d call you untrusting?’ he asked. ‘Or a cow?’ he added, just in time”). There are also a massive climactic storm and so many extremely convenient coincidences that it’s obvious some unseen supernatural player is at work. Sequels are certain, since the closing détente leaves almost everything unresolved.
A violent, madcap, frequently entertaining scramble. (Fantasy. 11-14)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-9084-5812-4
Page Count: 349
Publisher: Inside Pocket
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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