A shy fifth-grader has a hard-enough time getting by in his new school on his own, but his mother's new career as an events DJ threatens to undermine what little respect he may have earned from his classmates. Brendan Breen (one of his mother's many faults is a penchant for alliterative names) knows that his mother's appearance at the school's Music and Munchies Night will ruin his life forever, but none of his plans to prevent it work: his aunt refuses to feign a deathly illness on the day of the event; his mother rejects his suggestion that she use a different name; and she is downright offended when he brings home a wig so she will be unrecognizable. Predictably, Music and Munchies Night is an unqualified success, and Brendan even survives—and enjoys—doing the hokey-pokey. Wound around this plot is Brendan's slow integration into the classroom culture via a group project, and his ultimate discovery that he himself is something of a showman. Newcomer McDonough has crafted a comfortable, if thoroughly predictable, tale about fitting in, presenting a world in which the worst possible thing that can happen is embarrassment. The book seems unsure of its audience: Urbanovic's spot black-and-white cartoons are very young-looking and pigeonhole it squarely for younger readers, but the font size and relative denseness of text make it look older and somewhat more forbidding than the average early chapter book. There are some mildly amusing moments, but this ultimately superficial story does nothing particularly new. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8126-2699-0
Page Count: 120
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.
Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.
Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Using the multiple voices that made Bull Run (1995) so absorbing, Fleischman takes readers to a modern inner-city neighborhood and a different sort of battle, as bit by bit the handful of lima beans an immigrant child plants in an empty lot blossoms into a community garden, tended by a notably diverse group of local residents. It's not an easy victory: Toughened by the experience of putting her children through public school, Leona spends several days relentlessly bulling her way into government offices to get the lot's trash hauled away; others address the lack of readily available water, as well as problems with vandals and midnight dumpers; and though decades of waging peace on a small scale have made Sam an expert diplomat, he's unable to prevent racial and ethnic borders from forming. Still, the garden becomes a place where wounds heal, friendships form, and seeds of change are sown. Readers won't gain any great appreciation for the art and science of gardening from this, but they may come away understanding that people can work side by side despite vastly different motives, attitudes, skills, and cultural backgrounds. It's a worthy idea, accompanied by Pedersen's chapter-heading black-and-white portraits, providing advance information about the participants' races and, here and there, ages. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 11, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-027471-9
Page Count: 69
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
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