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HOPE IN THE HOLLER

Name: HOPE IN THE HOLLER
Author: Lisa Lewis Tyre
ISBN: 978-0-399-54631-0

by Lisa Lewis Tyre ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 9, 2018

A moving and richly engaging tale of despair and redemption.

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There isn’t much of anything but crushing poverty in the holler, making hope hard to sustain.

Wavie hasn’t even left the cemetery where her mother’s funeral was held before a stranger, her ignorant and mean aunt, Samantha Rose, shows up to take the grieving 12-year-old back to the family home in Conley Holler. That house, “a whole new level of despair,” turns out to be more hovel than home, part of the reason Wavie’s mom turned her back on it years ago. It’s quickly obvious that Samantha’s interest is motivated by Wavie’s Social Security check—not affection or family ties. Befriended by resilient neighbor kids Gilbert and Camille, Wavie eventually finds a way to achieve the good life that her mom promised her she deserved. Wavie has a delightfully memorable first-person voice that includes pithy observations, such as “If the [war on poverty] was over, my new neighborhood was proof we’d lost.” She’s so engaged with the people around her that her perceptions breathe full life into a range of characters, from the school principal who high-fives students (while secretly checking for lice) to an elderly, confused ex-lawyer grieving for his beloved lost son. Camille and her Mexican-American family are some of the few people of color in this mostly white, not universally welcoming Kentucky community. If things work out a bit too well for real life, this glimpse of happiness can be forgiven.

A moving and richly engaging tale of despair and redemption. (Fiction. 10-14)

Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-399-54631-0

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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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)