A poignant coming-of-age story that explores the ripple effects of death, loss, and forgiveness.
Millie is a genuinely happy person; she’s a comedian who loves making other people laugh—until the day she cannot laugh anymore.
Twelve-year-old Millie Donally feels so mature when their neighbors the Acostas ask her to watch their baby daughter, Lolo, when they go out to dinner. Millie’s older sister is their usual sitter, but she can’t make it. Everything goes well, and Millie goes home happy and proud of herself only to wake in the morning to find out that Lolo passed away during the night. Even though the sudden infant death syndrome is not her fault, Millie is transformed overnight from carefree to guilt-ridden and depressed. The only bright spot (figuratively and literally) is the warm yellow light shining from Lolo’s room. Millie swears she feels a warm electrical hum as well, although no one else seems to notice it. Millie attempts to move forward, but how do you go on after something like this? How can she be with her friends, who can’t truly understand what she’s feeling? Even the class project she had looked forward to, incubating chicken eggs, is now in Millie’s eyes rife with potential for disastrous failure. Millie’s slow process through grief and guilt—with help from a family therapist—is extraordinarily well written, taking readers on the heartbreaking, difficult, and necessary journey that follows unthinkable loss. Characters are minimally described and read White.
A poignant coming-of-age story that explores the ripple effects of death, loss, and forgiveness. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-79721-294-4
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK REVIEW
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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