by Vicki Grant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 2015
Clues come at just the right pace for the readers to crack the puzzle right along with the protagonist in this mystery, one...
In a witty and believable 1964 Ontario, a foundling teen investigates the circumstances of her own birth.
Sixteen-year-old Dorothy "Dot" Blythe knows she'd been found at the Benevolent Home for Necessitous Girls. What she hadn't known is that she'd been a premature infant no bigger than a woman's hand, wrapped in a coat from a shop in the town of Buckminster, bundled up with a sterling-silver mustard spoon. When the Benevolent Home burns down, the matron kindly packs Dot off to Buckminster, the coat and spoon her only guides to her past. Though Dot can't find her parents anywhere, she does find a job as a seamstress—and a lot of secretive townsfolk. It seems that the town's sordid past might be tied to Dot's own, so she enlists the help of a flirtatious townie and aspiring journalist to ferret out Buckminster's secrets. Oddly enough, several older locals react strangely when they first meet Dot. The novel has an eerie, slow build, with a sense of danger increasing with each secret unearthed, but it collapses into a dissatisfyingly simple and light revelation. Nonetheless, this mystery stimulates while showcasing its mid-20th-century Canadian setting. Buckminster teen life in 1964 includes drinking, sex, and "lighting farts on fire," challenging simplistic interpretations of the Donna Reed era.
Clues come at just the right pace for the readers to crack the puzzle right along with the protagonist in this mystery, one of seven linked novels publishing simultaneously . (Historical mystery. 12-16)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4598-0653-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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by Patricia McCormick ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 8, 2012
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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by Alice Oseman ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 2017
A smart, timely outing.
Two teens connect through a mysterious podcast in this sophomore effort by British author Oseman (Solitaire, 2015).
Frances Janvier is a 17-year-old British-Ethiopian head girl who is so driven to get into Cambridge that she mostly forgoes friendships for schoolwork. Her only self-indulgence is listening to and creating fan art for the podcast Universe City, “a…show about a suit-wearing student detective looking for a way to escape a sci-fi, monster-infested university.” Aled Last is a quiet white boy who identifies as “partly asexual.” When Frances discovers that Aled is the secret creator of Universe City, the two embark on a passionate, platonic relationship based on their joint love of pop culture. Their bond is complicated by Aled’s controlling mother and by Frances’ previous crush on Aled’s twin sister, Carys, who ran away last year and disappeared. When Aled’s identity is accidently leaked to the Universe City fandom, he severs his relationship with Frances, leaving her questioning her Cambridge goals and determined to win back his affection, no matter what the cost. Frances’ narration is keenly intelligent; she takes mordant pleasure in using an Indian friend’s ID to get into a club despite the fact they look nothing alike: “Gotta love white people.” Though the social-media–suffused plot occasionally lags, the main characters’ realistic relationship accurately depicts current issues of gender, race, and class.
A smart, timely outing. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-233571-5
Page Count: 496
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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