bookshelf

NOT QUITE A STRANGER

Name: NOT QUITE A STRANGER
Author: Colby Rodowsky
ISBN: 0-374-35548-7

by Colby Rodowsky ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 15, 2003

bookshelf

The only real fly in 13-year-old Tottie’s ointment is when embarrassing moments are rendered as “universal truths” in her mother’s newspaper column for the world to read—until 17-year-old Zachary shows up, the spitting image of Tottie’s father. Zachary is the product of a med-school indiscretion and was presumed to have been adopted at birth. Zachary’s first-person narration alternates with Tottie’s, informing readers that his mother chose to raise him alone, and happily, until her death from cancer drives him to his father’s door. His numbness at the devastating turn of events that plunks him into the laps of strangers is effectively rendered, as is Tottie’s unreasoning anger at him for upsetting her world and her father for revealing feet of clay. That the family in its new configuration eventually adjusts is never really in question, but Rodowsky’s deliberate treatment allows her two main characters plenty of room to explore their feelings. If the secondary characters are more than a little too good to be true, this still does nothing to void the honest emotions of the newly joined siblings. (Fiction. 10-13)

Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2003

ISBN: 0-374-35548-7

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
BEN AND THE SUDDEN TOO-BIG FAMILY
by Colby Rodowsky

- BOOK REVIEW
THAT FERNHILL SUMMER
by Colby Rodowsky

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NEXT-DOOR DOGS
by Colby Rodowsky & illustrated by Amy June Bates

bookshelf

FINDING MIGHTY

by Sheela Chari ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 30, 2017

A quick, agreeable caper, this may spark some discussion even as it entertains.

bookshelf

Myla and Peter step into the path of a gang when they unite forces to find Peter’s runaway brother, Randall.

As they follow the graffiti tags that Randall has been painting in honor of the boys’ deceased father, they uncover a sinister history involving stolen diamonds, disappearances, and deaths. It started long ago when the boys’ grandmother, a diamond-cutter, partnered with the head of the gang. She was rumored to have hidden his diamonds before her suspicious death, leaving clues to their whereabouts. Now everyone is searching, including Randall. The duo’s collaboration is initially an unwilling one fraught with misunderstandings. Even after Peter and Myla bond over being the only people of color in an otherwise white school (Myla is Indian-American; mixed-race Peter is Indian, African-American, and white), Peter can’t believe the gang is after Myla. But Myla possesses a necklace that holds a clue. Alternating first-person chapters allow peeks into how Myla, Peter, and Randall unravel the story and decipher clues. Savvy readers will put the pieces together, too, although false leads and red herrings are cleverly interwoven. The action stumbles at times, but it takes place against the rich backdrops of gritty New York City and history-laden Dobbs Ferry and is made all the more colorful by references to graffiti art and parkour.

A quick, agreeable caper, this may spark some discussion even as it entertains. (Mystery. 10-12)

Pub Date: May 30, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4197-2296-7

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Amulet/Abrams

Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE EXTRADIMENSIONAL REAPPEARANCE OF MARS PATEL
by Sheela Chari

- BOOK REVIEW
KARTHIK DELIVERS
by Sheela Chari

- BOOK REVIEW
THE INTERPLANETARY EXPEDITION OF MARS PATEL
by Sheela Chari

bookshelf

THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM--1963

by Christopher Paul Curtis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1995

bookshelf

Curtis debuts with a ten-year-old's lively account of his teenaged brother's ups and downs. Ken tries to make brother Byron out to be a real juvenile delinquent, but he comes across as more of a comic figure: getting stuck to the car when he kisses his image in a frozen side mirror, terrorized by his mother when she catches him playing with matches in the bathroom, earning a shaved head by coming home with a conk. In between, he defends Ken from a bully and buries a bird he kills by accident. Nonetheless, his parents decide that only a long stay with tough Grandma Sands will turn him around, so they all motor from Michigan to Alabama, arriving in time to witness the infamous September bombing of a Sunday school. Ken is funny and intelligent, but he gives readers a clearer sense of Byron's character than his own and seems strangely unaffected by his isolation and harassment (for his odd look—he has a lazy eye—and high reading level) at school. Curtis tries to shoehorn in more characters and subplots than the story will comfortably bear—as do many first novelists—but he creates a well-knit family and a narrator with a distinct, believable voice. (Fiction. 10-12)