Life for Penina is becoming more combative. Her bratty four-year-old sister, Mimsy, is continually tattling and getting Penina grounded for inappropriate behavior. Her teacher, Ms. Anderson, is threatening her with a zero when Penina, who is Jewish, has misgivings and refuses to complete a required assignment related to Easter. And best friend Zozo provides very little moral support, and is sure Ms. Anderson will “flunk” Penina for missing three days of school to attend the family Seders out of town. Unwilling to confront her parents, who are already angry with her, Penina confides her problems to Grandma while peeling hard-boiled eggs for the Seder. Grandma quietly intercedes to make sure Penina gets some adult support. Her parents intervene at school to clear up the misunderstanding between a first-year teacher’s misguided good intentions and a sensitive religious issue. Through it all, Penina’s resilience strengthens as her predicament becomes heated much the way an egg hardens as it cooks in hot water. Well-crafted multiple themes are integrated into a captivating, realistic middle-grade novel where conflicts are addressed, if not resolved, in pragmatic and convincing scenarios. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 1-59643-140-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Deborah Brodie/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.
Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.
Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Using the multiple voices that made Bull Run (1995) so absorbing, Fleischman takes readers to a modern inner-city neighborhood and a different sort of battle, as bit by bit the handful of lima beans an immigrant child plants in an empty lot blossoms into a community garden, tended by a notably diverse group of local residents. It's not an easy victory: Toughened by the experience of putting her children through public school, Leona spends several days relentlessly bulling her way into government offices to get the lot's trash hauled away; others address the lack of readily available water, as well as problems with vandals and midnight dumpers; and though decades of waging peace on a small scale have made Sam an expert diplomat, he's unable to prevent racial and ethnic borders from forming. Still, the garden becomes a place where wounds heal, friendships form, and seeds of change are sown. Readers won't gain any great appreciation for the art and science of gardening from this, but they may come away understanding that people can work side by side despite vastly different motives, attitudes, skills, and cultural backgrounds. It's a worthy idea, accompanied by Pedersen's chapter-heading black-and-white portraits, providing advance information about the participants' races and, here and there, ages. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 11, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-027471-9
Page Count: 69
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
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