Tender, direct, and honest.
Cal’s little brother is diagnosed with cancer just as Cal’s magical summer of friendship with a girl his own age comes to a close.
In a first-person narrative set in 1995 near London, Ontario, white, 11-year-old Cal Sinclair describes the change in his relationship with 6-year-old Sammy and his new friendship with Aleta Alvarado. Cal, an avid Goosebumps reader, is an inventive tormentor of his brother, bribing Sammy with “levels” of achievement—Ant to Eagle—for missions like wasps’-nest bothering. Cal is determined to befriend the new girl at church. Aleta, who intensely mourns her deceased mother, is from Mexico (Cal describes her speech as “sing-songy, pretty with only a slight accent”). Cal and Aleta form a strong bond that leaves Sammy behind. When at summer’s end Sammy’s bruises and exhaustion are given a diagnosis—leukemia—Cal is devastated and contrite. A course of chemotherapy turns into what Oliver, an older, long-term patient in the children’s cancer ward, calls the “cancer crumble”: arguments between Cal’s parents that emerge along with despair even before the unhappy diagnosis and recommendation of palliative care come through. Lyttle’s voice for Cal is appealingly direct and articulate, if occasionally outsized—“I imagined a place of absent hair matching absent smiles, cries and moans haunting dark halls and darker rooms”—and his account of his struggle to cope will appeal to readers.
Tender, direct, and honest. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77168-111-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short.
In the dystopian, totalitarian world of 2099, 14-year-old Tessa and her family are desperate to solve the mystery of her twin brother Theo’s disappearance.
Tessa is growing up in a time when playgrounds are historical relics, surveillance cameras are everywhere, music is outlawed, and owning books is illegal. Under the absolute rule of Zokiris, the decadeslong leader of her territory, people are heavily controlled. When Theo vanishes under mysterious circumstances and his name is erased from the Territory Statistics list, Tessa’s 135-year-old neighbor, Miriam, gives the family contraband books that become central to figuring out Theo’s whereabouts. Most books have long since been seized and stored away in Building 903; Tessa is intrigued by their presence in her home, while her mother is terrified. Lowry, the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Giver (1993), shines in her creation of uncomfortably believable dystopian societies. Tessa’s painfully limited world is fully imagined, with its own history, laws, and norms. Her relationship with her brother reads as realistic and tender and is crucial to the mystery. Miriam is the most strongly developed character: wise and independent, unafraid and hopeful. While the climb to the book’s climax is captivating, the hurried resolution is disappointing. The powerful messaging around the importance of literature and imagination certainly resonates, however. The main characters present white.
A successful call for creating and imagining, even if the story itself falls short. (Dystopian. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780063515109
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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