Thin but nevertheless intriguing.
Eric has just moved to a new school with a strict principal. However, Mr. Germinato seems most concerned with the school dress code, which applies only to girls.
It’s clear to Eric and to the other seventh-graders that the dress code is unfair to girls, which is ironic, since their school is named after a famous early local feminist. Eric (presumably white) finds himself immediately attracted to Daisy, a Chinese-Canadian girl who loves colorful fashion. He decides to try to help fight the dress-code rules by getting onto the Student Life Committee but quickly learns that he has no power there at all to change things and must in fact enforce the rules. When he is faced with turning Daisy in for a dress-code violation, however, he decides to organize a schoolwide rebellion: they will all wear forbidden leggings to school. How will the increasingly authoritarian Mr. Germinato respond? By making a boy her main character but putting the book’s focus on the injustice done to girls, Polak might well appeal across the gender line, although the narrative becomes a bit preachy about sensitivity to girls’ rights. The principal becomes a cardboard-cutout villain, and the characters have far less depth than is typical for Polak, but the novel moves swiftly and may provoke some thought.
Thin but nevertheless intriguing. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1189-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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