A rich multicultural narrative that struggles to keep the main plot in focus.
Following 2019’s You Must Be Layla, this sequel takes readers on a journey with Layla, an intrepid middle child of Sudanese origin living in Brisbane, Australia.
The novel references events in the previous book, such as Layla’s school suspension, but readers do not need to be familiar with the first book to fully understand this one. Fourteen-year-old Layla, or Laylz as her friends call her, has a single goal: to travel to Germany and win an annual international inventors’ competition. Her dream is seemingly derailed, however, when news of her maternal grandmother’s hospitalization in Sudan compels the family to drop everything and fly out to join Habooba Samira, the family matriarch, despite the country’s political protests. Most pages include words or expressions from Arabic, immersing readers in a setting that reflects the hybrid reality the main character inhabits; non-Arabic speakers can look words up in the glossary or work out the meanings from the context. The story includes a lot of rich background information about Sudanese culture, including cuisine and traditional foods; ancient history; current political events; and social issues, such as gender equality—as well as discussing immigrant identities and the dilemmas faced by those who feel caught between cultures. Layla’s experiences offer a refreshing lens on subject matter that is of wide interest, but the narrative struggles under the weight of details, diluting the central storyline.
A rich multicultural narrative that struggles to keep the main plot in focus. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-76089-606-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development.
A portal fantasy survivor story from an established devotional writer.
Fourteen-year-old Eva’s maternal grandmother lives on a grand estate in England; Eva and her academic parents live in New Haven, Connecticut. When she and Mum finally visit Carrick Hall, Eva is alternately resentful at what she’s missed and overjoyed to connect with sometimes aloof Grandmother. Alongside questions of Eva’s family history, the summer is permeated by a greater mystery surrounding the work of fictional children’s fantasy writer A.H.W. Clifton, who wrote a Narnialike series that Eva adores. As it happens, Grandmother was one of several children who entered and ruled Ternival, the world of Clifton’s books; the others perished in 1952, and Grandmother hasn’t recovered. The Narnia influences are strong—Eva’s grandmother is the Susan figure who’s repudiated both magic and God—and the ensuing trauma has created rifts that echo through her relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. An early narrative implication that Eva will visit Ternival to set things right barely materializes in this series opener; meanwhile, the religious parable overwhelms the magic elements as the story winds on. The serviceable plot is weakened by shallow characterization. Little backstory appears other than that which immediately concerns the plot, and Eva tends to respond emotionally as the story requires—resentful when her seething silence is required, immediately trusting toward characters readers need to trust. Major characters are cued white.
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development. (author’s note, map, author Q&A) (Religious fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593194454
Page Count: 384
Publisher: WaterBrook
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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