Page-turning.
Denis returns from the afterlife to help his twin brother solve the mystery of how he died.
Narrator Denis has been dead for 5 years. Because the sojourn in Port Haven, Denis’ post-death residence since he was 7, is about letting go of the threads of life, backward from dying, Denis doesn’t remember what happened to him. Denis’ twin, Matt, now 12, has found their father’s file on his brother’s disappearance from an amusement park and the subsequent discovery of the boy’s body at the Georgia monument in Gettysburg, and he wants answers: What happened to Denis? Denis—hoping to help his brother find peace—goes through “the razor,” a frightening and painful process that allows the dead to visit the living. Together, with some help from Matt’s best friend, Trey, they follow the few clues available to them, all the while navigating their parents’ grief and distress. News of a car submerged in a quarry and a strange stalker add to the mystery, while red herrings, past violence and tragedies, and Denis’ fragmented recollections intensify the challenge. The characters seem to be white. A great-uncle was gay, and Trey is someone whose gender Denis never figures out. Abbott keeps the tension high and the mystery dark and unsettling, leavening it with several flashes of humor and intriguing imaginative speculation about the dead.
Page-turning. (Mystery/ghost story. 10-13)Pub Date: July 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249122-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals.
Is dolphin-assisted therapy so beneficial to patients that it’s worth keeping a wild dolphin captive?
Twelve-year-old Lily has lived with her emotionally distant oncologist stepfather and a succession of nannies since her mother died in a car accident two years ago. Nannies leave because of the difficulty of caring for Adam, Lily’s severely autistic 4-year-old half brother. The newest, Suzanne, seems promising, but Lily is tired of feeling like a planet orbiting the sun Adam. When she meets blind Zoe, who will attend the same private middle school as Lily in the fall, Lily’s happy to have a friend. However, Zoe’s take on the plight of the captive dolphin, Nori, used in Adam’s therapy opens Lily’s eyes. She knows she must use her influence over her stepfather, who is consulting on Nori’s treatment for cancer (caused by an oil spill), to free the animal. Lily’s got several fine lines to walk, as she works to hold onto her new friend, convince her stepfather of the rightness of releasing Nori, and do what’s best for Adam. In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. Siblings of children on the spectrum will identify with Lily. If the tale flirts with sentimentality and some of the characters are strident in their views, the whole never feels maudlin or didactic.
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-67605-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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