Byalick (It’s a Matter of Trust, 1995) pens a readable story about a young girl living with Tourette’s syndrome. While she doesn’t skimp on any unpleasant details, she doesn’t make it seem as if having the illness is the worst thing in the world either. The heroine of the piece is a likable Long Island seventh-grader named Carrie Kravetz. She has a pretty typical life—if you don’t count her involuntary head twitches, facial tics, and compulsive throat clearing and sniffing, not to mention the extraordinary lengths she must go to sometimes to suppress these outbursts. Yet in many ways Carrie’s life is like any other girl’s. She’s got loving parents, for one thing. By trying to hide their pain and annoyance about Carrie’s symptoms, however, they’re dishonest about their feelings and pretend the disease doesn’t exist. She also has a good relationship with her elder sister. Furthermore, Carrie excels in school drama and jazz dance (interestingly, Tourette’s seems to vanish altogether during these pursuits). Carrie also has a best friend, Clyde, who’s got his own problems (a terror of mosquitoes and the West Nile virus; this boy sees epidemic everywhere) yet who has steadfastly stood by Carrie through all of her tics over the years. Then Rebecca, a new girl in school, enters Carrie’s sphere. The two girls grow close right away, but at the expense of Clyde’s friendship, since Rebecca wants nothing to do with him. Though the three are all part of the “Lunch Bunch” at school, three’s a crowd and the new girl’s monopoly of Carrie drives a wedge between the two former best friends. How this is all resolved—and how Carrie gets her parents to listen to her and accept her, through the offices of a kind, understanding teacher—makes for thought-provoking and satisfying reading. A helpful list of FAQs and answers about Tourette’s syndrome are appended. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2002
ISBN: 0-385-72997-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.
Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.
Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many.
Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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