Beautifully illustrates how sharing old stories can be the best way to learn how to share new ones.
While Tiến is fluent in English, his Vietnamese refugee parents are not, leaving them struggling at times for a shared language.
Tiến’s mom, Hiền, asks him to read aloud the fairy tales he checks out from the library; they both love them, and she can use them to practice English. When Tiến selects “Tattercoats,” his seamstress mother tells him that there is a Vietnamese version that her own mother told her, long ago. As he reads the story of love, longing, and travel across a sea, Hiền is reminded of family she left behind in Vietnam while Tiến tries to navigate his own first love, a boy he is friends with. Le Nguyen’s gorgeous, flowing, detailed illustrations deftly weave Vietnamese and Western fairy-tale worlds together with Hiền’s memory of her past and Tiến’s struggle over coming out. The rich color palette highlights both the layers within each panel as well as serving as a road map for readers by indicating whether the panels are set in the present, the past, or within the fairy tale. This clever use of color smooths the way for the sophisticated embedding of stories within a story that highlights the complex dynamics between first-generation and second-generation family members. Warm, loving family and friends are a refreshing alternative to immigrant stories that focus on family problems.
Beautifully illustrates how sharing old stories can be the best way to learn how to share new ones. (author’s note, notes about the illustrations, bonus artwork) (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-12529-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A thrilling quest through real and metaphorical mazes, obstacles, and trials.
Five sisters learn they have hidden powers that might help them save their mother from danger.
Mnemosyne is the Goddess of Memory, a Titan who was granted asylum on Mount Olympus by Zeus after the Titan war. But Mnemosyne, who has bronze skin and black hair, eventually fled Olympus, wiping the gods’ memories so she could start her own family in safety. She created five daughters: gifted storyteller and leader Calliope, inquisitive history buff Clio, volatile empath Melpomene, magical dancer Terpsichore, and gifted comedian Thalia. Mnemosyne successfully keeps their existence hidden from the gods until the girls stage a public birthday performance for her. As Mnemosyne hurriedly explains the danger the girls are in, she’s kidnapped by Pain and Panic, two minions of Hades, God of the Underworld. The sisters must now put aside their differences to use their unique strengths and their mother’s special journal to ask the very gods their mother fears for help. A nice exploration of lesser-known female figures from Greek mythology, this tale features a fine balance of self-actualization and connections among the central characters, each of whom has a distinct temperament and narrative. The dramatis personae and pronunciation key will also make it easier for readers to distinguish the different cast members.
A thrilling quest through real and metaphorical mazes, obstacles, and trials. (Fantasy. 13-17)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781368098700
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Disney Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst.
When a calamitous drought overtakes southern California, a group of teens must struggle to keep their lives and their humanity in this father-son collaboration.
When the Tap-Out hits and the state’s entire water supply runs dry, 16-year-old Alyssa Morrow and her little brother, Garrett, ration their Gatorade and try to be optimistic. That is, until their parents disappear, leaving them completely alone. Their neighbor Kelton McCracken was born into a survivalist family, but what use is that when it’s his family he has to survive? Kelton is determined to help Alyssa and Garrett, but with desperation comes danger, and he must lead them and two volatile new acquaintances on a perilous trek to safety and water. Occasionally interrupted by “snapshots” of perspectives outside the main plot, the narrative’s intensity steadily rises as self-interest turns deadly and friends turn on each other. No one does doom like Neal Shusterman (Thunderhead, 2018, etc.)—the breathtakingly jagged brink of apocalypse is only overshadowed by the sense that his dystopias lie just below the surface of readers’ fragile reality, a few thoughtless actions away. He and his debut novelist son have crafted a world of dark thirst and fiery desperation, which, despite the tendrils of hope that thread through the conclusion, feels alarmingly near to our future. There is an absence of racial markers, leaving characters’ identities open.
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst. (Thriller. 13-17)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8196-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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