An ambitious novel that is both heartfelt and tongue-in-cheek.
A Dubai sixth grader finds her life and plans upended when the Gulf War breaks out and her family decides to change course.
Pakistani 11-year-old Mona Hasan has big plans for the new year. It’s January 1991, and among her resolutions are no longer rolling her eyes behind her parents’ backs and being nicer to her little sister. She is also super curious about boys, her changing body, and the popular new girl at school. Mona pours her feelings about all these things into her diary, often writing poems about the events of the day. When Iraq invades Kuwait, her parents begin whispering about immigration, a new word she looks up—and is not pleased to learn about. The text takes readers from Dubai, on a visit to Pakistan, and then eventually to Canada, where the family settles in a small Nova Scotia town. Mona is reading Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, which this work is clearly a tribute to. Hussain effectively captures the tone and format of the original classic: Mona’s diary entries and poems are often quite moving and unintentionally hilarious. However, the book’s many topics, including a creepy family friend and the boy who is Mona’s first crush, at times feel underdeveloped. Mona’s story is at its strongest when she’s describing the intricacies of life in Dubai and the cultures and religions of its diverse populations.
An ambitious novel that is both heartfelt and tongue-in-cheek. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-7352-7149-4
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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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