A strong emotional arc grounds this uneven survival story exploring environmental and human rights.
A grief-stricken boy finds a renewed sense of family and purpose on a secret expedition into the rainforest.
Jack has been on a downward spiral since the death of his beloved father. Depression muffles his emotions, and he feels drawn to risky endeavors with a crew of troublemakers. Mum suddenly announces they’re going away for two weeks over the Christmas holidays, but what Jack assumes is a vacation turns out to be a life-changing expedition for her work. Written in the first person, this story is anchored by Jack’s vivid emotions. Grief, anger, and hurt are deftly drawn as his emotional world expands and his passion for environmental and human rights grows. While Jack’s strong voice carries the story despite shallow supporting character development, even he can’t really explain why he was given no training before being thrust into the dangers of the rainforest. The covert expedition in the third act is the most compelling part of the story, although the transition from cautionary tale about an apathetic, wounded boy to survival story is a bit abrupt. Cultural markers and Portuguese words point to a Brazilian locale. There’s an odd juxtaposition of specific details about the lives of the region’s Indigenous people with a lack of specificity about their name and lands; in fact, specific geographic names are omitted throughout the book. Jack has a Portuguese-speaking grandmother; his race and nationality are ambiguous.
A strong emotional arc grounds this uneven survival story exploring environmental and human rights. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781782693840
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Pushkin Children’s Books
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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
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A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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