Sobering, thoroughly credible and, ultimately, optimistic about the chances of our better natures triumphing when the going...
A family fleeing rapidly degenerating social order caused by world-changing volcanic eruptions finds respite and new heart in this well-crafted sequel to Memory Boy (2001).
Driven from their comfortable home outside Minneapolis in the previous episode by increasingly brutal hard times and a rising tide of lawlessness, the Newells have taken refuge in an isolated cabin in the north woods—knowing that they have to adapt to radically changed living conditions, and also to keep from being identified by local residents as homeless “Travelers” to be hustled along, or worse. Fortunately, eighth-grader Sarah and her equally urbanized, floundering parents have big brother Miles to lean on, with his tough, commonsense outlook, ready shotgun and a photographic memory stocked with information on living off the land. But they can’t always be dependent on him, as they discover when he is sidelined by a devastating injury. Weaver paints a realistic picture of life without electricity or plumbing, from the constant labor required to keep the wood pile stocked to killing and dressing a deer. And, even more compellingly, in the Newells’ contacts with others, he portrays a society in which some struggle to maintain cherished values and stability while others succumb to increasing suspicion, parochialism and desperation.
Sobering, thoroughly credible and, ultimately, optimistic about the chances of our better natures triumphing when the going gets rough. (Science fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-009476-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
PROFILES
The issues-driven plotline is superimposed rather forcibly on the athletic one—but both feature suspenseful,...
A challenging endurance event provides an adopted teen with the perfect opportunity to track down his birth mother.
Still afflicted with frequent nightmares about being stolen 16 years before, Andreo eagerly agrees to join his strangely reticent adoptive parents in a seven-day “adventure race” set, conveniently, in the very area of Bolivia in which he was born. The race itself—which involves segments of mountain biking, trekking, canoeing and even caving—makes absorbing reading but serves largely as a backdrop to Andreo’s stubborn pursuit of his Quechua birth mother’s identity. Beginning with confirmation that he was a black-market baby, his quest leads to involvement with a baby-trafficking ring, puts him in considerable danger but also ultimately brings him face to face with his birth mother, who does not react as he expects her to. In a strenuous effort to engineer happy endings all round (except for the traffickers), Withers contrasts this scene with a different reception given to a similarly adopted teen who is shoehorned into the cast. She closes her tale with a round of fulsome apologies that neatly cements Andreo’s troubled relationship with his adoptive family.
The issues-driven plotline is superimposed rather forcibly on the athletic one—but both feature suspenseful, character-changing incidents. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77049-766-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
A dramatic tale—or the first part of one, anyway—heavily steeped in tribal lore.
The young Cherokee seer struck by lightning in Abnormal (2014) acquires more extrasensory powers after a near-death experience in this partial sequel.
Rashly opening a long-sealed chamber in a cave he is exploring with his friend Chigger, Billy is bitten and knocked off a cliff by a flock of strange bats. Following a spirit conversation with his long-dead grandmother Awinita (her presence is signaled by whiffs of apple cider and pumpkin pie) about his “unfolding gift” for helping others, he wakes up in a hospital bed with an ability to see into people’s pasts and also to perceive evil. This is fortunate, because opening the cave also released the ancient, life-sucking Horned Serpent known as Uktena from the lake of soporific herbal tea it’s been held in and left Chigger, who had carried away a violet crystal once embedded in the serpent’s tail, possessed. These promising developments may help readers past the unvarnished infodumps and continual references to Cherokee characters and traditional practices that the author shoehorns into the story. With help from a gathering of “medicine people and stomp dance leaders,” Billy seems about to prevail—but then Robinson cuts off abruptly, leaving most of the conflict and all of the resolution for future episodes.
A dramatic tale—or the first part of one, anyway—heavily steeped in tribal lore. (Paranormal suspense. 11-13)Pub Date: April 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-939053-08-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: 7th Generation
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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