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FLIPPED

Name: FLIPPED
Author: Wendelin Van Draanen
ISBN: 0-375-81174-5

by Wendelin Van Draanen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2001

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Proof that the course of pubescent love never runs smooth. When Bryce and Julianna (Juli) meet, they are both seven and Bryce has just moved in across the street. For Juli, it is love at first sight: “The day I first met Bryce Loski, I flipped. Honestly, one look at him and I became a lunatic. It’s his eyes.” As far as Bryce is concerned, the feeling is definitely not mutual: “All I’ve ever wanted is for Juli Baker to leave me alone. For her to back off—you know, just give me some space.” Six years after their meeting, Bryce is something of a judgmental priss (just like his father), and Juli is full of passion and enthusiasm for life. But in their eighth-grade year, Juli’s fight to save an old tree from being cut down causes Bryce to look at Juli with growing admiration—just at the same time that Juli finally realizes that Bryce’s character does not measure up to his eyes. The story is told in both voices, in alternating chapters that develop from a sort of “he said, she said” dialogue into an exploration of perception, misapprehension, and context. Van Draanen (Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy Mystery, 2000, etc.) deftly manages the difficult task of establishing and maintaining the reader’s sympathy with both characters. The text stretches credibility in a couple of ways, especially with the premise that a seven-year-old is capable of a long-lasting romantic infatuation. It is, nevertheless, a highly agreeable romantic comedy tempered with the pointed lesson (demonstrated by the straining of Bryce’s parents’ marriage) that the “choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.” (Fiction. 10-14)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-375-81174-5

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE STEPS
by Wendelin Van Draanen

- BOOK REVIEW
GRAVITY IS BRINGING ME DOWN
by Wendelin Van Draanen ; illustrated by Cornelia Li

- BOOK REVIEW
MR. WHISKERS AND THE SHENANIGAN SISTERS
by Wendelin Van Draanen ; illustrated by Wendelin Van Draanen

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SHE THIEF

by Daniel Finn ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2010

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Baz is an excellent thief. She has been since the beginning, when Demi found her as a tiny child and she came to live with him in Fay’s den of child crooks in an (perhaps frustratingly) unspecified urban slum. No one is as good at picking pockets as the innocent-looking team of Baz and Demi, and they’re content to be Fay’s favorite children. When Demi steals a glittering ring from an uptown lady, they fall into a lengthy chain of betrayal and corruption. Spies within their own gang are the least of their problems; the ring belonged to the chief of police’s wife, and both the police and the mob are after them. Trusting anyone is dangerous, but Baz doesn’t want to end up like Fay and Demi, who trust no one. Lavish details of the hellish environment, from mud flats that drown the unwary to the festering garbage mountain on which enslaved children pick trash for the mob, derail the adventure’s forward momentum, slowing it to a crawl. What ought to be a thrilling chase drags, despite the charming, streetwise heroine. (Fiction. 12-13)

Pub Date: April 1, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-312-56330-1

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Chelsea Green

Review Posted Online: April 22, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2010

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT MYSTERY & THRILLER | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES

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CONDITIONS OF LOVE

by Ruth Pennebaker ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1999

Although the story offers no real surprises, the author’s amusing first-person account and eye for detail keep the narrative...

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Sarah’s hard-drinking, charismatic father has been dead for close to a year when this aptly titled novel from Pennebaker (Don’t Think Twice, 1996, etc.) opens.

A social nonentity in her ritzy school, Sarah and her earnest best friend, Ellie, spend their afternoons writing letters to the governor, begging him to spare death-row inmates. Sarah, still coming to terms with her grief, has recently grown weary of serious issues and dreary causes; moreover, she’s tired of Ellie’s sad-sack personality and her self- absorbed, dysfunctional family. Sarah wants to grow up, figure out how to get Ben to like her the way she likes him, and have some fun for a change. In the course of this intelligent, touching novel, she does just that, guiltily jettisoning Ellie for a new best friend, and reaching out to her crush. More significantly, she forges a new understanding with her mother, and discovers that the love she felt for her father was real even though he wasn’t the man she thought he was.

Although the story offers no real surprises, the author’s amusing first-person account and eye for detail keep the narrative consistently engaging; setting Pennebaker’s novel apart from the pack is the very specific behaviors and warty humanness of the adroitly drawn characters. (Fiction. 11-14)