An imperiled white cat is the catalyst for an abused girl to find the courage to defy her violent father. “You bruise too easy, girl,” Papa says to Jordan in Arrington’s heart-wrenching debut, blaming her for the purple mark he inflicted upon her face. Papa tells Jordan that she doesn’t have to go to school on Monday, but it’s Jordan’s turn for the coveted position of class helper and she goes anyway. The 11-year-old lies when her injury is spotted by the school authorities, but she and her younger brother, who Papa also beats, give contradictory stories. Jordan knows that the social workers would soon come to her house. Again. And “when they left, then Papa would get mad.” In the course of this spare yet eloquent story in which the author’s deliberate understatement of emotion intensifies its strength, Papa, a mean drunk who works only intermittently, becomes a robber. Arrington describes Jordan’s hazy, child’s-eye grasp of Papa’s criminal activities, and by illuminating her confusion, turns the neat trick of making the reader understand completely. Although Jordan can almost believe that she is somehow at fault for her own beatings, the white cat that she and her brother have been secretly feeding is truly innocent. When Papa deliberately hurts it, Jordan, who can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt, takes action. The story’s hopeful ending defies the odds, but it works, thanks to the author’s meticulous setup—and because the reader wants it so much. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-399-23882-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2003
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
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