Readers looking for a story involving horses, magic, or a bit of Cuban history will do better looking elsewhere.
A young girl’s greatest fear is the loneliness of horselessness.
The story starts as the Spanish-American War ends. Estrellita is a young girl afflicted by rickets due to the lack of sunshine and proper nutrition experienced during the war when she and her mother were forced to remain hidden in a cave. Now out of the cave and in the city, Estrellita meets a man who rewards her imaginative storytelling by allowing her to groom his horses, and she eventually learns to ride. When a colt is born and becomes hers, a bond is forged between the two. Eventually Estrellita, the horse—Lucero, or Morning Star—and a large group of Cuban children end up at a progressive theosophist school in California. Horse and rider are separated, and by the time they reunite, the horse has grown wings and can fly. Engle combines a too-large number of intriguing though disparate elements as she works from beginning to unsatisfying ending: Cuban lore, alternative education, physical disabilities, a love of horses, magical flights in the air and underwater, mistrust, bullying, anger, bewilderment, and punishment. The resulting story is one that rambles more than it makes sense. The Spanish translation runs in parallel to the English text on facing pages; though for the most part it’s correct, it is at times too wordy, leading to awkwardness.
Readers looking for a story involving horses, magic, or a bit of Cuban history will do better looking elsewhere. (author’s note) (Historical verse novel. 10-13)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943050-25-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Horizon Bound
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2017
Year-round fun.
Set in 1937 during the so-called “Roosevelt recession,” tight times compel Mary Alice, a Chicago girl, to move in with her grandmother, who lives in a tiny Illinois town so behind the times that it doesn’t “even have a picture show.”
This winning sequel takes place several years after A Long Way From Chicago (1998) leaves off, once again introducing the reader to Mary Alice, now 15, and her Grandma Dowdel, an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who despite her hard-as-nails exterior is able to see her granddaughter with “eyes in the back of her heart.” Peck’s slice-of-life novel doesn’t have much in the way of a sustained plot; it could almost be a series of short stories strung together, but the narrative never flags, and the book, populated with distinctive, soulful characters who run the gamut from crazy to conventional, holds the reader’s interest throughout. And the vignettes, some involving a persnickety Grandma acting nasty while accomplishing a kindness, others in which she deflates an overblown ego or deals with a petty rivalry, are original and wildly funny. The arena may be a small hick town, but the battle for domination over that tiny turf is fierce, and Grandma Dowdel is a canny player for whom losing isn’t an option. The first-person narration is infused with rich, colorful language—“She was skinnier than a toothpick with termites”—and Mary Alice’s shrewd, prickly observations: “Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.”
Year-round fun. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 978-0-8037-2518-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this series debut, Maggie Sinclair tracks down a dognapper and solves a mystery about the noises in the walls of her Brooklyn brownstone apartment building. The 12-year-old heroine, who shares a middle name—Brooklyn—with her twin brother, Finn, is juggling two dogwalking jobs she’s keeping secret from her parents, and somehow she attracts the ire of the dogs’ former walker. Maggie tells her story in the first person—she’s self-possessed and likable, even when her clueless brother invites her ex–best friend, now something of an enemy, to their shared 12th birthday party. Maggie’s attention to details helps her to figure out why dogs seem to be disappearing and why there seem to be mice in the walls of her building, though astute readers will pick up on the solution to at least one mystery before Maggie solves it. There’s a brief nod to Nancy Drew, but the real tensions in this contemporary preteen story are more about friendship and boy crushes than skullduggery. Still, the setting is appealing, and Maggie is a smart and competent heroine whose personal life is just as interesting as—if not more than—her detective work. (Mystery. 10-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 967-1-59990-525-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
