A heart-aching journey that needs to be witnessed.
A 12-year-old girl navigates the effects of past abuse and finds the power to share her truths.
Fresh off a seven-week leadership program at Ainsley International School, an elite boarding school, Caprice is eager to see her friends and family back in Newark at the end of an amazing summer. Before she leaves, the head of school offers her a full scholarship, giving her a week to decide whether she wants to return. Once home, Caprice is keen to see her best friend, Nicole, and enjoy what could be her last week of summer at their neighborhood recreation center despite the shadow cast by news of her estranged grandmother’s failing health. Through her first-person narration, readers come to understand that Caprice is harboring painful feelings tied to incidents of abuse from when she was younger that now influence her interactions with boys, even the one she is developing feelings toward. As the week moves on, an increasingly anxious Caprice must confront her past so that she can have a better future. The raw, poignant text highlights the frequency of misogynistic microaggressions and objectification, while the swift yet emotionally charged ending supports the larger message of consent and the hope of overcoming the lasting trauma of sexual assault. The book’s haunting tone will linger with readers. Caprice and most main characters are Black.
A heart-aching journey that needs to be witnessed. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-545-93334-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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