Complex emotional themes are handled with a gentle touch in this realistic story of resilience.
Overcoming the past redefines family bonds in this hopeful, heartfelt story.
Thirteen-year-old Sage lives in a trailer park in Virginia with her dad. She’s keeping a secret about her mom hidden even from her closest friend, Alejandro. Feeling guarded and guilty, Sage obsessively imagines do-overs of the day when everything changed. When the estranged maternal grandparents she’s never met invite Sage for a summer visit, she accepts despite her father’s opposition, eager to accept their offer to pay for her flight to Ohio. On the plane, Sage befriends Marla, another girl who’s traveling alone. Sage partially opens up to Marla, revealing her desire to look for clues to her mother’s life while she’s visiting her grandparents. By the time the plane lands, the girls are determined to stay in touch, and their fast friendship eventually leads Sage to a revelation of truths she was previously afraid to admit. Sage’s memories of her missing mom are interspersed throughout the story, even as Sage searches her grandparents’ home, looking for answers that remain just out of reach. She also befriends—and conceals—a stray dog who eventually becomes a source of joy, bringing the family closer together. The story centers on a white-presenting family; racial and ethnic diversity is cued throughout.
Complex emotional themes are handled with a gentle touch in this realistic story of resilience. (author’s note, author Q&A, discussion guide) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781631639166
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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