A highly affecting novel about young people working together to preserve the richness of their environment.
A Ghanaian youngster is excited to finally explore the island that his late father had helped transform into a bird sanctuary.
In this engaging sequel to Crossing the Stream (2021), Ato and his friends Dzifa and Leslie join other young people for a weeklong visit to Nnoma. By taking part in activities such as photographing wild animals by night and building rafts out of natural materials, they have a chance to earn the title of Asafo, a protector of the natural world, which had been Ato’s father’s wish for him. Ato is also determined to discover his father’s plan to protect the island from those who would do it harm. The activities are both physically and mentally challenging, leaving Ato little time to look into his father’s plan. And as they approach the end of the week, Eyra, the island’s owner, who had seemed so charismatic and wise, starts to behave erratically. Ato and his friends must work together to figure out what’s going on—and safeguard the island. Ato is, once again, an irresistible hero, and his friends, old and new, are well-rounded contributing characters. Baitie offers a beautiful depiction of contemporary Ghana, with rich cultural details that ground the narrative and create a page-turning experience.
A highly affecting novel about young people working together to preserve the richness of their environment. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781324052678
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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