A touching, memorable read that explores the costs, large and small, of an unpopular war.
It’s 1971, and the Vietnam War has upended Lucy Rossi’s life; when her Army doctor dad returns an amputee, the unsettling changes intensify.
After her dad shipped out, Lucy, 12, and her mom moved from Chicago to San Jose, California, close to his eccentric, loving Italian-American family. Lucy still hasn’t made friends. She treasures the small rocks her dad encloses in his letters and longs for his return. But he arrives home changed: He won’t use his prosthesis and rebuffs her attempts to help; he talks to her mom in private but shuts Lucy out. She finds solace in her friendship with another newcomer, Milo, whose dad’s still in Vietnam. Finding an unknown soldier’s discarded helmet, photos, and Purple Heart, they decide to identify and locate him and deliver the items to his family. Along the way, they’re welcomed at an informal refuge for veterans but turned away from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion, where Vietnam veterans are despised. As her dad’s condition worsens and the hunt stalls, friends and family teach Lucy to value human connections she’s dismissed. Lyrically written, the novel portrays the war’s corrosive, divisive impacts with compassion but skirts the harder issue of those within and outside the military who resisted a war they saw as wrong. Major characters are white; two memorable secondary characters are African-American.
A touching, memorable read that explores the costs, large and small, of an unpopular war. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-16394-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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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BOOK REVIEW
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