Sweet but deafening, Emma’s contagious enthusiasm amplifies this wholesome fan letter for younger readers.
The exuberant journal of a star-struck fan who vows to stop at nothing—even doing chores!—for a chance to see her favorite boy band perform live.
Thirteen-year-old Emma can’t believe her luck when her friend Jenny invites her to see Boyz3000 at their concert in the Bahamas. Surely once she finally meets lead singer Aaron, he’ll realize they were meant to be. Thankfully, Emma isn’t completely boy crazy: she’s also a budding writer who draws inspiration from Aaron’s song lyrics. Though Emma marks her journal with a dizzying amount of hysterical punctuation and all caps—“If I couldn’t go, I ACTUALLY MIGHT DIE!!!!”—she articulately defends her love for music to her teacher, Ms. Pinkens, who asks her to rewrite her essay on the subject. “With just some notes and some words, music can make you smile, or cry, or laugh or feel anything you can imagine,” Emma says. It’s refreshing to see a heroine with such a close-knit family: Emma’s parents are willing to indulge her fantasy but only if she earns some of the trip money herself; along the way, Emma’s sister Dianna and her 16-year-old cousin Elyse selflessly help Emma achieve her goal. Emma agrees to walk dogs and bake cookies to raise funds for her plane ticket—her parents offer to put money toward it, too—but her efforts don’t yield immediate results, teaching her valuable lessons about perseverance, honesty, and the cost of doing business. Meanwhile, teenage angst runs high as Emma’s trip sparks jealousy among the other girls in her class, and a realistic game of one-upmanship ensues. Once she’s in the Bahamas, Emma learns to align her expectations with reality as she and Jenny scour the resort, looking for Aaron. But this gentle depiction of young love offers a glimmer of hope in an otherwise hopeless celebrity crush. Emma meets a cute boy who might make her forget what she came for and remember why she loves to write.
Sweet but deafening, Emma’s contagious enthusiasm amplifies this wholesome fan letter for younger readers.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Red Sky Presents
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
