A realistic if gently didactic tale about growing up and parenting.
Apple’s got plenty to contend with: her best friend’s deserted her, the boy she’s attracted to barely knows she exists, and her overprotective Nana is a source of embarrassment at school—but what hurts most is her glamorous mother’s abandonment 11 years ago.
At first, her mother’s unexpected return feels like a dream come true, but Apple’s euphoria fades when she realizes Mum didn’t return to rescue her but to be rescued herself from having to raise her younger daughter, Rain, 10, whose existence is a surprise to Apple and Nana, Mum’s mother. Apple, 14, suppresses her doubts when she’s invited to move in with Mum and Rain—the prospect trumps life with Nana. At least Mum won’t insist on driving Apple to school. Instead, Mum urges alcohol on Apple and her classmates, flirts with Apple’s crush, and disappears for days at a time, leaving Apple to skip school and care for troubled Rain. Her English teacher’s poetry assignments encourage Apple, a budding writer, to examine and express her complicated feelings, giving rise to important insights. Her friendship with a new classmate, Del, is a further support. Appealing but naïve, Apple feels more preteen than teen. Most characters, including Nana and Rain, are compassionately drawn—the exception is Mum, whose monstrous narcissism goes far beyond anything Nana’s self-confessed strict parenting can explain.
A realistic if gently didactic tale about growing up and parenting. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61963-690-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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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