Despite the promising title, the rudest alien turns out to be the most confused alien, and she occupies a correspondingly confused text. Oluu, an alien from an unidentified planet and civilization, has landed on Earth for a never-defined mission. She is apparently a mechanical being but is able, by means of a process never described, to assume the form of organic beings for the purposes of fitting in with the local fauna. In her first disguise as a dog, she makes friends with Molly, the daughter of a Vermont dairy farmer. Misadventure after misadventure causes Oluu to change forms over and over, and eventually she reveals herself to Molly’s on-again, off-again friend Jack, as well. This, of course, goes strictly against her instructions, as does her growing attachment to the two children—and the results are predictably difficult for all three. The reader learns that Oluu is from a collectivist civilization, one in which individual thought and choice are subordinate to the maintenance of a group equilibrium; she delivers the occasional sharp comment regarding humanity’s propensity to destroy the common good. But aside from her affection for Jack and Molly, which leads her vaguely to question some of her assumptions, she never exhibits any real philosophical differences with her home culture, so there is no real struggle of beliefs to temper Oluu’s character—just a certain fecklessness. The children, too, are not terribly well-developed characters, although Jack shows some promise of complexity, and despite a revolving limited third-person focus on each of the three throughout the narrative, not one of them truly comes alive. Combine the murkiness of character development with a patent failure to explain the whys and hows of Oluu’s existence—a sine qua non of science fiction—and Conly (What Happened on Planet Kid, 2000, etc.) comes up with a good title—but little else. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-8050-6069-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-32175-9
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ultimately, Burg’s lyrical prose will make readers think about the common ground among peoples, despite inevitable...
Melding the colors of heartache and loss with painterly strokes, Burg creates a vivid work of art about a girl grieving for her recently deceased mother against a Third World backdrop.
Clare is not speaking to her father. She has vowed never to speak to him again. Which could be tough, since the pair just touched down in Malawi. There, Clare finds herself struck by the contrast between American wealth and the relatively bare-bones existence of her new friends. Drowning in mourning and enraged at the emptiness of grief, Clare is a hurricane of early-adolescent emotions. Her anger toward her father crackles like lightning in the treetops. She finds purpose, though, in teaching English to the younger children, which leads her out of grief. Burg’s imagery shimmers. “The girl talks to her mother in a language that sounds like fireworks, full of bursts and pops. She holds her hand over her mouth giggling.... She probably has so many minutes with her mother, she can’t even count them.” Her realization of the setting and appreciation for the Malawian people are so successful that they compensate for Clare's wallowing, which sometimes feels contrived.
Ultimately, Burg’s lyrical prose will make readers think about the common ground among peoples, despite inevitable disparities. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: June 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-385-73471-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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