Intimate and introspective.
A young boy in China seeks a place to call home in this title translated from Chinese.
Eleven-year-old Bai Jian yearns for a simple, quiet home life like his classmates have. His mother left when he was an infant, and ever since the death of his grandmother, it’s just been Bai Jian, his father, and the string of girlfriends his father abuses. Despite being “utterly broke,” Bai Jian’s father, who wants to pursue his own interests, enrolls his son in a boarding school. Although this change in schools kicks off the plot, much of the narrative revolves around Bai Jian’s interactions and relationships with grown-ups and his ruminations on their lives and actions. On weekends and during school holidays, Bai Jian bounces among his father, his father’s kind ex who’s a sort of mother figure, and his own mother, who makes a reappearance. There are moments of care but also many moments of disappointment as the adults prioritize themselves. Pulled in different directions, Bai Jian’s not sure who, if anyone, is best for him—or at least, better than the others. The boy’s observations and thoughts have a youthful reasoning to them, yet at times his voice sounds more mature than his age. This introspective novel explores topics such as poverty, alcoholism, homelessness, neglect, and domestic violence; because the book is light on context, younger readers may benefit from discussing these themes with adults.
Intimate and introspective. (Fiction. 11-15)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781646143832
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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