With a series of shocked responses to an apparently random murder, Walter (Hi, Pizza Man, 1995) challenges readers to make sense of a senseless act. On his 13th birthday, Robbie Jones takes his father's handgun, shoots an elderly Korean store owner, then crouches numbly in a tree until apprehended. Why? Robbie's teacher (``He was never a behavior problem''), classmates (``a geeky little guy''), parents (``He wasn't a bad boy''), witnesses, lawyer, and police officers are all mystified. Robbie disappears into prison without offering an explanation, and only a few enigmatic clues emerge: his infatuation with a classmate; his tough-talking, utterly clueless father; the superhero he and a friend create whose specialty is helping children in trouble. The book is obtrusively designed; using an array of typefaces, blocks of text clipped and pasted at an angle, and dark, distorted, computer- manipulated photo-montages, Roeckelein creates an ominous, sometimes disorienting atmosphere that suggests a turmoil in Robbie that never shows up in the text. Only near the end does he make a statement, and that indirectly, with a comic-book scenario in which Megaboy, sensitive to ``unspoken cries for help,'' makes ``a human child born on the wrong planet'' his sidekick. An eerie, disturbing puzzle that leaves readers to identify and assemble the pieces themselves, with results that may not be satisfying. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-7894-2488-6
Page Count: 64
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
The exodus of the Jews is breaking Dani’s heart: the exodus from Buenos Aires, that is. The 2001 Argentinian currency crisis has destroyed Buenos Aires’s economy, and all of Dani’s friends are moving to Israel or the United States. Dani’s own family, devastated by poverty and her father’s overwhelming depression, is headed to New York. There, in a wealthy suburb, Dani struggles to make friends in a huge, English-speaking public high school. Dani’s high-school problems follow a checklist of issues: autistic friend, mean popular girl, long-distance boyfriend hiding his new romance. The supporting characters act mostly as set dressing—from the bully who vanishes as soon as he has provoked another character’s redemption to the friend from ESL class who has no nationality or history of her own—and the comforting solutions are too pat. Enjoyable enough, so keep this on the shelf to fight misconceptions about terrorism, poverty, immigration and Jews—but don’t expect readers to come begging for more. (Historical fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-15144-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
In an age of missing children, Kehret (The Blizzard Disaster, 1998, etc.) spins an exciting tale about a deranged mother and the child—not hers’she stalks. Ginger has long had the feeling that somebody is watching her; during her 13th birthday party in a restaurant, she sees a strange woman staring at her, who also appears to write down the license plate number when Ginger’s family drives away. Questions nag at Ginger but she brushes them off, facing other, more ordinary problems. A meddlesome parent, Mrs. Vaughn, is trying to get Mr. Wren, Ginger’s basketball coach, fired; wanting more playing time for her own daughter, Mrs. Vaughn has concocted a list of complaints, claiming that Mr. Wren doesn’t teach basic skills. Ginger, an aspiring sports announcer, has videotaped many of the practices and has the evidence to prove Mrs. Vaughn wrong, but is afraid—as is most of the community—of getting on the woman’s wrong side. The stalking of Ginger, her near-kidnapping, and her attempt to live honorably by coming forward to save Mr. Wren converge in a dramatic climax. While the story reads like a thriller, the character development and moral dilemmas add depth and substance. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-525-46153-1
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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