Daisy is distinctive and memorable, and this depiction of PTSD is useful, making this a fine, compelling tale.
Remember Black Beauty?
Who really knows how a horse (or, in this case, a dog) thinks? Tubb has taken a stab at it, and for dog lovers, Daisy’s first-dog voice will be completely believable. Confined in an animal shelter, she’s chosen by the Colonel, a brave war veteran suffering from severe PTSD, his young teen son, Micah, and Alex, a dog trainer, to be trained to be the Colonel’s service animal. Daisy is eager to please and willing to give her all to help this suffering Mexican-American family. Sadly, she seems to have PTSD herself after a brutal first home where she was forced to fight other dogs and the loss of her litter of puppies to a garbage truck (a terrifying scene revealed in flashback). Daisy’s wry comments on human foibles and eccentricities, along with her sensitive, growing understanding of the broken dynamic of the Colonel’s family (she observes that Micah constantly wears headphones that no one realizes are shut off, for example), combine to paint a moving picture of suffering and, ultimately, redemption. At times issues are oversimplified; the Colonel’s rejection of Daisy after she twice fails her certification test followed by his abrupt change of heart in deciding to keep her on as a family pet feels facile.
Daisy is distinctive and memorable, and this depiction of PTSD is useful, making this a fine, compelling tale. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-246324-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
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
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
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)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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