Fast-paced and funny with brief but crucial hiccups of legal learning.
In a narrative laced with lighthearted and self-deprecating humor, 14-year-old Cyril MacIntyre relates a crime story disguised as a lesson in legal terminology.
Cyril’s young, tough-talking single mother, Andy, incorporates Cyril into everything she does, including taking him to law school when he was 10 and installing him as receptionist for the two-woman law firm she lands at. When Byron Cuvelier, a one-handed man who shares a mysterious past with Andy, shows up and moves in with them, it’s clearly blackmail as far as Cyril is concerned. So when Andy disappears, that naturally sets Cyril to sleuthing, and his secondhand legal training is just part of what he needs to unravel the case. (Each chapter is introduced by a legal term that sets up the action.) The story is set in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Cyril, Andy, and Byron are white, while Andy’s lawyer mentor is South Asian, and many among their clientele are minorities. The characters are not as simplistic as they initially seem, as first impressions are peeled away. Despite Cyril’s tough talk, the narrative is clearly intended for an audience that will expect and enjoy the rosy ending indicated by the confident tone throughout. (Amusingly, Andy’s cusswords are bleeped in the dialogue.) While the satisfying denouement doesn’t make complete sense in terms of the characters, it is completely in sync with the mood.
Fast-paced and funny with brief but crucial hiccups of legal learning. (Mystery. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1931-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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