An emotionally perceptive book about grief, identity, and change.
Twelve-year-old Ahmed Aziz has never lived anywhere other than Hawaii, where everyone in his neighborhood knows everything about him.
When his Indian American Muslim family moves to his father’s hometown in Minnesota—one of three places in the world where his father can get the treatment he needs to recover from an inherited form of hepatitis C—Ahmed is anxious, heartbroken, and afraid. Things do not get off to a promising start. On Ahmed’s first day at his mostly White school, his neighbor Jack bullies him. Plus Ahmed is assigned to an accelerated section of language arts, a class taught by his father’s old friend Janet Gaardner—even though he hates to read. Ahmed’s homesickness only intensifies as he struggles to find a place among his peers and as his father’s illness worsens. However, he begins to find comfort in places he never expected, including in hearing memories of his uncle, who died at the age of 12 in the same hospital where Ahmed’s dad is now fighting for his life. Eventually Ahmed realizes that he is best loved and happiest when he is himself. This well-paced book tells a compassionate and authentic story about how families deal with intergenerational grief. The author seamlessly incorporates details of Ahmed’s heritage alongside his father’s Midwestern childhood, in the process accurately and unapologetically portraying Ahmed’s multifaceted identity.
An emotionally perceptive book about grief, identity, and change. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-302489-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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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