A transformative journey celebrating the power of overcoming personal struggles to make a lasting impact.
Traumatized teens find each other and bond over a shared passion for conservation.
Ana, a Cuban American 17-year-old, is living in a car with her mother. Her mom’s job doesn’t pay enough to cover the cost of living in California’s Bay Area, especially now that they’re hiding from her dangerous father, who’s wanted by the FBI for domestic terrorism. A chance meeting with Leandro, a recent refugee from Cuba who’s also 17, leads to instant attraction, and a romance grows. Leandro witnessed his father drown during their dangerous journey to Miami from Cuba, and he can’t shake the guilt and psychological scars. Service dog Cielo is his constant sidekick, helping with Leandro’s panic attacks. Cielo proves to be a wise companion, sharing observations on emotions, nature, and the human condition in chapters written from her perspective, which are interspersed with chapters voiced by each teen. Ana and Leandro care deeply for the natural world around them, and they start a rewilding club at school to help support the work of environmental scientists and wildlife rescuers. The pair become involved with a pregnant puma who needs immediate support, and they work to make changes for the puma population. Verse in various forms, including beautiful concrete poems, effectively conveys this story’s themes of sustainability, resilience, and activism.
A transformative journey celebrating the power of overcoming personal struggles to make a lasting impact. (author’s note) (Verse fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781665939751
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
This astonishing book will generate much needed discussion.
After 15-year-old Will sees his older brother, Shawn, gunned down on the streets, he sets out to do the expected: the rules dictate no crying, no snitching, and revenge.
Though the African-American teen has never held one, Will leaves his apartment with his brother’s gun tucked in his waistband. As he travels down on the elevator, the door opens on certain floors, and Will is confronted with a different figure from his past, each a victim of gun violence, each important in his life. They also force Will to face the questions he has about his plan. As each “ghost” speaks, Will realizes how much of his own story has been unknown to him and how intricately woven they are. Told in free-verse poems, this is a raw, powerful, and emotional depiction of urban violence. The structure of the novel heightens the tension, as each stop of the elevator brings a new challenge until the narrative arrives at its taut, ambiguous ending. There is considerable symbolism, including the 15 bullets in the gun and the way the elevator rules parallel street rules. Reynolds masterfully weaves in textured glimpses of the supporting characters. Throughout, readers get a vivid picture of Will and the people in his life, all trying to cope with the circumstances of their environment while expressing the love, uncertainty, and hope that all humans share.
This astonishing book will generate much needed discussion. (Verse fiction. 12-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3825-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Poignant and real, beautiful and intense, this story of a girl struggling to define herself is as powerful as Xiomara’s...
Poetry helps first-generation Dominican-American teen Xiomara Batista come into her own.
Fifteen-year old Xiomara (“See-oh-MAH-ruh,” as she constantly instructs teachers on the first day of school) is used to standing out: she’s tall with “a little too much body for a young girl.” Street harassed by both boys and grown men and just plain harassed by girls, she copes with her fists. In this novel in verse, Acevedo examines the toxicity of the “strong black woman” trope, highlighting the ways Xiomara’s seeming unbreakability doesn’t allow space for her humanity. The only place Xiomara feels like herself and heard is in her poetry—and later with her love interest, Aman (a Trinidadian immigrant who, refreshingly, is a couple inches shorter than her). At church and at home, she’s stifled by her intensely Catholic mother’s rules and fear of sexuality. Her present-but-absent father and even her brother, Twin (yes, her actual twin), are both emotionally unavailable. Though she finds support in a dedicated teacher, in Aman, and in a poetry club and spoken-word competition, it’s Xiomara herself who finally gathers the resources she needs to solve her problems. The happy ending is not a neat one, making it both realistic and satisfying. Themes as diverse as growing up first-generation American, Latinx culture, sizeism, music, burgeoning sexuality, and the power of the written and spoken word are all explored with nuance.
Poignant and real, beautiful and intense, this story of a girl struggling to define herself is as powerful as Xiomara’s name: “one who is ready for war.” (Verse fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-266280-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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