At not quite 14, Graham reaches a crisis with his overbearing father. Summering at Mariposa, where the horses Dad trains are often winners, Graham is increasingly aware that Dad insists on using him as a sounding board yet has no tolerance for his son's opinions. Meanwhile, best old friend Leslie persists in confiding the details of her romance with a ``sensitive, vulnerable'' guitarist and asking Graham's advice—oblivious to his own vigorous attraction to her. Responding to all this with a mixture of sweetness and clumsy early-adolescent rancor, Graham surfs (inexpertly) to forget his troubles; does his patient best for Leslie; stands up to his father with regard to a two-year-old whose owner is eager to race her (prematurely, Dad fears), and even follows the filly to her new trainer—then feels guilty about the frightening depth of his anger towards his father. Like the protagonist of The Boy in the Moon (1990), likable Graham gets some of his better qualities, including honest self- appraisal and scintillating wit, from his mother; Koertge's characters have an individuality from which their interaction springs with wonderful inevitability. A well-crafted, wholly believable picture of a boy in transition, with a satisfying resolution involving recognitions and adaptations from both father and son—hilariously counterpointed with the first appearance of that boyfriend of Leslie's, who (to Leslie's dismay) has been transformed from Scarlatti fan to rock freak. (Fiction. 12-16)
Pub Date: May 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-316-50103-4
Page Count: 171
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1991
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in...
This is almost like a play for 18 voices, as Grimes (Stepping Out with Grandma Mac, not reviewed, etc.) moves her narration among a group of high school students in the Bronx.
The English teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wesley, his response to a month of reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Soon there’s an open-mike poetry reading, sponsored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then later, every week. The chapters in the students’ voices alternate with the poems read by that student, defiant, shy, terrified. All of them, black, Latino, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alienation endemic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appealing voices. Among them: Janelle, who is tired of being called fat; Leslie, who finds friendship in another who has lost her mom; Diondra, who hides her art from her father; Tyrone, who has faith in words and in his “moms”; Devon, whose love for books and jazz gets jeers. Beyond those capsules are rich and complex teens, and their tentative reaching out to each other increases as through the poems they also find more of themselves. Steve writes: “But hey! Joy / is not a crime, though / some people / make it seem so.”
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in the poetry. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2569-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
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