Readers are often promised unforgettable protagonists—this memoir delivers one.
Abbas and his mother are about to board a plane for Turkey when authorities order her to remain in post-Revolution Iran with his father, Karim; Abbas, at Karim’s insistence, flies alone to Istanbul to stay and apply for a British visa—he is 9.
Abbas doesn’t speak Turkish; a promised helper fails him; the fleabag hotel he’s deposited in is in a dangerous neighborhood. His intelligence, resilience and cocky charm help (though he owes more to luck and the kindness of strangers). He survives—barely. Karim’s lessons (be wary of strangers, change currency on the black market, eat just one meal a day to save money) go only so far. Here, everyone’s a stranger. Abbas must learn to tell friend from foe. Kazerooni doesn’t dilute harsh events or assign them benign meanings retroactively—there’s no “everything happens for a reason.” Abbas’ anguish and fear, his repeatedly dashed hopes are wrenching. Yet whether he’s crushed or elated, the story itself is uplifting; readers will feel exhilarated when he solves a problem or makes the important discovery that what terrifies him—his vulnerability—is his biggest asset, bringing him notice from kindly adults who offer help. Other accounts of displaced children—China’s “paper sons,” young Central American refugees—have borne witness to ways human-generated calamities harm their weakest victims, but seldom this convincingly. Although Abbas’ account can be harrowing, it is told plainly, and these are not, regrettably, uncommon experiences for children, making this both accessible to and suitable for a middle-grade audience.
Readers are often promised unforgettable protagonists—this memoir delivers one. (author’s note) (Memoir. 9-14)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4778-4783-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Skyscape
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
A satisfying story of family, friendship and small-town cooperation in a 21st-century world.
Sent to stay with octogenarian relatives for the summer, 14-year-old Mike ends up coordinating a community drive to raise $40,000 for the adoption of a Romanian orphan. He’ll never be his dad's kind of engineer, but he learns he’s great at human engineering.
Mike’s math learning disability is matched by his widower father's lack of social competence; the Giant Genius can’t even reliably remember his son’s name. Like many of the folks the boy comes to know in Do Over, Penn.—his great-uncle Poppy silent in his chair, the multiply pierced-and-tattooed Gladys from the bank and “a homeless guy” who calls himself Past—Mike feels like a failure. But in spite of his own lack of confidence, he provides the kick start they need to cope with their losses and contribute to the campaign. Using the Internet (especially YouTube), Mike makes use of town talents and his own webpage design skills and entrepreneurial imagination. Math-definition chapter headings (Compatible Numbers, Zero Property, Tessellations) turn out to apply well to human actions in this well-paced, first-person narrative. Erskine described Asperger’s syndrome from the inside in Mockingbird (2010). Here, it’s a likely cause for the rift between father and son touchingly mended at the novel's cinematic conclusion.
A satisfying story of family, friendship and small-town cooperation in a 21st-century world. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 9, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25505-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
Growing up in Warsaw with Mr. Singer offers more than a day of pleasure to families who joined him In My Father’s Court, from which fourteen of these nineteen episodes are adapted. But the elevenish contemporary of “Itchele” who lacks the East European frame of reference that these autobiographical sketches demand may have trouble relating to the bittersweetness of the Hasidic upbringing as the lonely son of the rabbi of Krochmalna Street; to his mysterious joy-fear on contemplating the Cabala; to the esoteric character of his family’s Jewish orthodoxy; to the distance between Jew and Gentile so absolute and so very enduring…Mr. Singer’s words as Grandfather-storyteller are best read aloud and interpreted by a grandfather who shares his memories, who can communicate Singer’s hindsights with the authority and spirit of his insights, who can mediate between Singer’s remoteness to the child and his greatness. 9-11
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1969
ISBN: 0374416966
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1969
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