Like The Young Landlords who found themselves responsible to the diverse elderly tenants of a rundown tenement, Myers' latest group of wholesome early teenagers spends a summer helping out at a neighborhood old-people's home. This time, the service is a sentence imposed by a juvenile court judge after narrator Steve (the book is his journal) is caught spray-painting a fictitious gang name on a subway car. (The other three sentenced with him were on hand, and eager abettors.) Steve has perpetrated this uncharacteristic, spur-of-the-moment "vandalism" to impress his new trial brother, Earl, a 13-year-old offender (armed robbery at eleven, for starters) whom Steve's parents have virtuously decided to adopt. And so the story chronicles both Steve and Earl's bumpy progress toward becoming brothers—while Steve's parents learn that noble gestures are not that easily rewarded—and the four kids' growing rapport with, and respect for, the old people, who are hostile at first and prickly about being thought helpless. They also insist on being called "seniors": "If I called you 'colored' instead of 'black' does that make a difference to you? You claim the right to define yourself in your own terms. Well we claim the same right." At the home, there are several such mini-lectures from the seniors; a couple of astutely staged and motivated fights among the kids; and a great united effort to earn money to keep the home in operation. (It fails, alas, because—a typical Myers message—the city welfare bureaucracy punishes initiative.) And meanwhile, back at their own home, there's a funny scene when Steve and Earl try to cook an octopus; some offstage soul-searching by the parents, who aren't sure about keeping Earl; and a sentimental heart-tugger at the end when Earl officially joins the family. Another of Myers' winning, medium-cool raps in the service of good old-fashioned values.
Pub Date: May 3, 1982
ISBN: 014032612X
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1982
A dark and gripping feminist tale.
A young woman faces her past to discover the truth about one of her nation’s heroes.
When Effy Sayre, the only female architecture student at her university in Llyr, wins the competition to design Hiraeth Manor for the estate of the late Emrys Myrddin, national literary figure and her favorite author, it is the perfect opportunity to leave behind a recent trauma. She arrives to find the cliffside estate is literally crumbling into the ocean, and she quickly realizes things may not be as they seem. Preston, an arrogant literature student, is also working at the estate, gathering materials for the university’s archives and questioning everything Effy knows about Myrddin. When Preston offers to include her name on his thesis—which may allow her to pursue the dream of studying literature that was frustrated by the university’s refusal to admit women literature students—Effy agrees to help him. He’s on a quest for answers about the source of Myrddin’s most famous work, Angharad, a romance about a cruel Fairy King who marries a mortal woman. Meanwhile, Myrddin’s son has secrets of his own. Preston and Effy start to suspect that Myrddin’s fairy tales may hold more truth than they realize. The Welsh-inspired setting is impressively atmospheric, and while some of the mythology ends up feeling extraneous, the worldbuilding is immersive and thoughtfully addresses misogyny and its effects on how history is written. Main characters are cued white.
A dark and gripping feminist tale. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780063211506
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This gripping page-turner will keep readers guessing until the final twist.
Seventeen-year-old Hunter Gifford has no memories of the car accident he was in the night of the homecoming dance with Chloe Summers, his now-missing girlfriend.
In the small southern Kentucky city of Bentley, comments on social media condemn Hunter as responsible for Chloe’s disappearance. When he attends the community vigil for her, Chloe’s mother publicly accuses Hunter of obstructing the investigation. Hunter’s own mom died when he was 15 and his sister, Olivia, was 12. Their dad has awkwardly attempted to pull his weight as a solo parent, and Hunter has stepped in and nurtured Livvy. Small but mighty Livvy is an ardent defender of her brother and is fiercely in love with her girlfriend, Gabriela. To make things worse, childhood friend Daniel informs Hunter that he’s making a true-crime documentary about Chloe. Hunter is upset, especially since it makes him look like a prime suspect, and a subsequent dramatic event draws more attention to the video. Hunter and Chloe met in creative writing club, and he knew she kept a journal—but it’s missing. Enter the sleuthing team of Hunter, Livvy, and Gabriela, who hatch a plan to find it. The dynamics between Hunter and Livvy and Livvy and Gabriela are endearing and will charm readers, who will root for them to solve the well-executed mystery. Main characters default to White; Gabriela is Mexican American.
This gripping page-turner will keep readers guessing until the final twist. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72825-420-3
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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