A must-read for fans of Walter Dean Myers' All the Right Stuff and other lovers of proud urban realism.
Academic ambition and hip-hop intersect in the South Bronx, where two friends spend a summer growing up and, unwillingly, apart.
Quintero details the summer of 1983, when the teens work what appears to be their final summer together as camp counselors. Raymond “Smiles” King is a smart, ambitious black teenager who has recently lost his mom to sickle cell anemia, and Guillermo “Nike” Vega is a Nuyorican Casanova and break-dancer who attempts to woo beautiful Sara, a new, mysterious girl in their neighborhood. Break-dancing and hip-hop are barely keeping their friendship together; shootings, neighborhood thugs, girls, and separate schools are no help. Racial and religious tensions are high not just in the Bronx, but in the Middle East, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is killing thousands, and all the while, the fear of AIDS is ever growing. Writing in an alternating first-person narrative, Quintero masters the characters’ colloquialisms and voices—Smiles is sensitive, self-aware, and Nike is hot-tempered, quick to challenge; both aspire to better lives. Quintero’s ability to deliver musical references, knowledge of 1980s vernacular, and b-boy jargon rivals Nike’s acrobatic, intricate footwork. Aside from a couple moments of misused Spanish, the Puerto Rican slang is in tune. The story is powerful and thought-provoking, an homage to a climactic hip-hop era, when friends are caught between aspirations and predetermined social disadvantages.
A must-read for fans of Walter Dean Myers' All the Right Stuff and other lovers of proud urban realism. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: July 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-375-84707-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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