Harmony McClean’s life is like the Tennessee mountain cabin she lives in: “never entirely finished and always in the process of becoming something else.” She can lie down in her backyard and touch Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia all at the same time, but readers soon realize her reach extends even further. She has powers that connect her to the trees, the stars, and the universe. Harmony, in fact, arrived in the Hamlin Mountains when a falling star landed in Felix McGuillicuddy’s wife’s chicken coop. Felix found Harmony, “naked and crowing louder than a rooster,” next to the star. Now 14, Harmony realizes her powers. She can make things happen just by thinking about them: set the table or start a fire in the fireplace. She sets off smoke detectors, blows up microwaves, and short-circuits vacuum cleaners just by walking by. But how should she handle such powers—hide them and fit into her community or embrace them and risk being different? Murphy (Black Angels, 2001, etc.) has created a magical story written with a light, lyrical touch, always rooted in the particulars of the mountain setting. Readers will accept the premise and care about Harmony because she seems real, as real and mysterious as the stars. By the end, she finds harmony and accepts herself and her gifts, using them to help a dying woman, protect her forest from a lumber company, and release a coyote from a steel trap. Harmony has come to realize the importance of having the courage “to live the life you were born to live.” (Fiction. 11+)
Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2002
ISBN: 0-385-72938-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002
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
Drawing on her experience with a relief organization on the Thai border, Ho tells the story of a Cambodian family, fleeing the rival factions of the 80's while hoping to gather resources to return to farming in their homeland. Narrator Dara, 12, and the remnants of her family have arrived at a refugee camp soon after her father's summary execution. At first, the camp is a haven: food is plentiful, seed rice is available, and they form a bond with another family- -brother Sarun falls in love with Nea, and Dara makes friends with Nea's cousin, Jantu, who contrives marvelous toys from mud and bits of scrap; made wise by adversity, Jantu understands that the process of creation outweighs the value of things, and that dead loved ones may live on in memory. The respite is brief: Vietnamese bombing disrupts the camp, and the family is temporarily but terrifyingly separated. Later, Jantu is wounded by friendly fire and doesn't survive; but her tragic death empowers Dara to confront Sarun, who's caught up in mindless militarism instigated by a charismatic leader, and persuade him to travel home with the others—to plant rice and build a family instead of waging war. Again, Ho (Rice Without Rain, 1990) skillfully shapes her story to dramatize political and humanitarian issues. The easily swayed Sarun lacks dimension, but the girls are more subtly drawn—Dara's growing courage and assertiveness are especially convincing and admirable. Touching, authentic, carefully wrought- -and with an unusually appealing jacket. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-374-31340-7
Page Count: 163
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1991
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