A high-school student with a passion for selling shoes may be a hard sell to teenagers, but Bauer (Sticks, 1996, etc.) makes 16-year-old, too-tall Jenna Boller a convincing narrator in this story of love and loss in the shoe business. President and owner of shoe stores from Chicago to Texas, the elderly Mrs. Gladstone appoints Jenna, who works in one of the stores, her personal driver. As the Chicago skyline recedes, Jenna and her companion head for the Lone Star state and a stockholders' meeting, taking in shoe stores from Peoria to Little Rock, where Mrs. Gladstone uncovers not only a decline in the quality of shoes being sold, but her son's plot for a company takeover. Sharp dialogue and caustic commentary from Jenna mark the journey, which lags somewhere around Kansas; revitalizing the plot is the entrance of Harry Bender, world's greatest shoe salesman. Through him and others, Jenna learns much more than the rules of the road ("Never eat at a place called MOM'S, because it's a safe bet Mom's been dead for years'') and business acumen. Jenna's alcoholic father hovers in the background, more plot manipulation than fully realized character, but his presence throws Jenna's new maturity into relief. It's an unlikely hero's journey, and Bauer's dry humor assures readers that all's well that ends wellif not in corporate takeovers, at least in the business of growing up. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: April 13, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-23140-4
Page Count: 201
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1998
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
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