From the moment when 13-year-old Elinor is awakened by the police arresting her father for embezzlement, Alcock's latest exploration of the dynamics of uncommon troubles holds attention. After surreptitiously slipping Elinor a receipt for luggage left at Victoria Station, Dad is whisked away, leaving the family nothing to live on. Pretty stepmother Sophia, only 21, fails to rise to the occasion: ``You couldn't dislike Sophia...But you couldn't depend on her.'' After summoning an odd lot of estranged relatives to split up the other three children, she takes baby Bambi and goes home to her mother in Italy. Elinor, sent to a curmudgeonly great-aunt, Mrs. Carter, discovers that her father has defrauded her of her life's savings. When she eventually unlocks the case retrieved from Victoria, it proves to contain evidence that Dad planned to abandon them all, plus only a fraction of the missing money. What to do with it? Honesty prevails, despite various urgent needs; and, unexpectedly, Sophia reappears to reunite the family. Besides Elinor, the story is enriched with several adroitly drawn characters, notably Timon, an abused boy who has been adopted by Mrs. Carter and with whom Elinor develops a prickly friendship; it's enlivened by suspenseful turns, including a confrontation in a dangerously decrepit abandoned house. As usual with this fine author (The Cuckoo Sister, 1986), compelling dialogue, imaginative plotting, and unusual insight into moral frailties and some unexpected strengths tie it all together. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-385-30564-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember.
Kai’s life is upended when his coastal village is devastated in Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami in this verse novel from an author who experienced them firsthand.
With his single mother, her parents, and his friend Ryu among the thousands missing or dead, biracial Kai, 17, is dazed and disoriented. His friend Shin’s supportive, but his intact family reminds Kai, whose American dad has been out of touch for years, of his loss. Kai’s isolation is amplified by his uncertain cultural status. Playing soccer and his growing friendship with shy Keiko barely lessen his despair. Then he’s invited to join a group of Japanese teens traveling to New York to meet others who as teenagers lost parents in the 9/11 attacks a decade earlier. Though at first reluctant, Kai agrees to go and, in the process, begins to imagine a future. Like graphic novels, today’s spare novels in verse (the subgenre concerning disasters especially) are significantly shaped by what’s left out. Lacking art’s visceral power to grab attention, verse novels may—as here—feel sparsely plotted with underdeveloped characters portrayed from a distance in elegiac monotone. Kai’s a generic figure, a coat hanger for the disaster’s main event, his victories mostly unearned; in striking contrast, his rural Japanese community and how they endure catastrophe and overwhelming losses—what they do and don’t do for one another, comforts they miss, kindnesses they value—spring to life.
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember. (author preface, afterword) (Verse fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53474-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
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