MAIZON AT BLUE HILL

Name: MAIZON AT BLUE HILL
Author: Jacqueline Woodson
ISBN: 0-385-30796-9

by Jacqueline Woodson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1992

Deeply felt and intelligently written, a book that stands fairly well alone, though it is enriched by knowing Maizon's...

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In the second of a trilogy, Maizon describes her experiences as a scholarship student, one of five blacks at an exclusive girls' school in Connecticut: events offstage in Last Summer with Maizon (1990), which focused on friend Margaret in sixth grade in public school back in Brooklyn.

Woodson neatly stacks her deck so that Maizon typifies a bright, conscientious girl deciding to bow out of a situation so alien that she finds it untenable; still, the author provides enough range among other characters to make the story believable, while Maizon herself is poignantly real. Though Maizon had described herself as an outcast at Blue Hill, the "true" story here is more complex: three of the other black girls (all older) have given up on whites and stick exclusively together, deriding the fourth—raised by her white father—as an "oreo." Confronted by their ultimatum and stung by the insensitivity of some of the whites, Maizon decides to be friends with no one; and though she eventually responds to her nice roommate and has real liking for some fine teachers, loneliness is the overriding factor in her decision to "find a place where smart black girls from Brooklyn could feel like they belonged."

Deeply felt and intelligently written, a book that stands fairly well alone, though it is enriched by knowing Maizon's earlier background. (Fiction. 10-14)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-385-30796-9

Page Count: 132

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1992

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
REMEMBER US
by Jacqueline Woodson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WORLD BELONGED TO US
by Jacqueline Woodson ; illustrated by Leo Espinosa

- BOOK REVIEW
THE YEAR WE LEARNED TO FLY
by Jacqueline Woodson ; illustrated by Rafael López

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SEE YOU IN THE COSMOS

by Jack Cheng ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2017

Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MANY MASKS OF ANDY ZHOU
by Jack Cheng ; illustrated by Jack Cheng

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THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL

From the School for Good and Evil series , Vol. 1

by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013

Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.

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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)