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ALPHABET CITY BALLET

Marisol Perez, who lives on New York City's Lower East Side, has always loved to dance; when she is given a scholarship to the Manhattan Ballet School, she is thrilled. But she needs someone to take her on the subway, since both her widowed father and older brother work and they won't let her travel alone. She hooks up with the other scholarship student, DesirÇe, a poor Haitian girl whose mother will take them. The book shifts between introducing the world of ballet (and its vocabulary, e.g., leotards, pliÇs, etc.) and current social issues. Marisol's brother comes close to working for a neighborhood drug lord, and anti-cop sentiment affects her relationship with her policewoman Big Sister. Also, Marisol must face her prejudice toward people who live in shelters and the shift in her relationships with friends who are resentful of her involvement in the uptown world of ballet. Tamar (The Garden of Happiness, p. 537, etc.), normally in command of her scenery and setting, is clumsy here; the book is often long-winded. The appeal is in featuring girls from various backgrounds involved in dance, and for that, the book should reach an audience well beyond balletomanes. (Fiction. 8-11)

Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1996

ISBN: 0-06-027328-3

Page Count: 168

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996

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RETURN TO SENDER

Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.

Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.

Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.

Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008

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SEEDFOLKS

Using the multiple voices that made Bull Run (1995) so absorbing, Fleischman takes readers to a modern inner-city neighborhood and a different sort of battle, as bit by bit the handful of lima beans an immigrant child plants in an empty lot blossoms into a community garden, tended by a notably diverse group of local residents. It's not an easy victory: Toughened by the experience of putting her children through public school, Leona spends several days relentlessly bulling her way into government offices to get the lot's trash hauled away; others address the lack of readily available water, as well as problems with vandals and midnight dumpers; and though decades of waging peace on a small scale have made Sam an expert diplomat, he's unable to prevent racial and ethnic borders from forming. Still, the garden becomes a place where wounds heal, friendships form, and seeds of change are sown. Readers won't gain any great appreciation for the art and science of gardening from this, but they may come away understanding that people can work side by side despite vastly different motives, attitudes, skills, and cultural backgrounds. It's a worthy idea, accompanied by Pedersen's chapter-heading black-and-white portraits, providing advance information about the participants' races and, here and there, ages. (Fiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: May 11, 1997

ISBN: 0-06-027471-9

Page Count: 69

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997

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