Interlocking stories connect a group of eighth-grade students who get caught cheating on their geography midterm. Using the same narrative technique employed in The Girls, Koss tells this somewhat thinner tale in a medley of first-person voices. Sarah, a pretty, popular eighth grader, accepts the answers to last year’s geography midterm from Jake, a smart kid “with a cool factor of zero” as casually as she would have taken “a stick of gum.” But the situation has unintended consequences when Sarah and two friends she shared the answers with are sent home for cheating. Sadly, these rudderless adolescents have to cope alone as their parents are seen as being either self-centered, morally corrupt, or physically violent. What’s intriguing and distressing about the piece is that while all the kids feel bad that they were caught—“Cheating is confusing, but getting caught is crystal clear”—there is no ethical consensus on cheating itself. Instead, the focus shifts to the morality of ratting out friends. And at the end of the story, Sarah, who refuses to tattle, and Jake, who finally confesses to the principal with the understanding that Sarah and the kids who rallied around her won’t be punished, come out as heroes. Although provocative and disturbing, the characters lack richness and their stories don’t build on each other to create a deeper whole, which is a shame because this contemporary, relevant topic is one that should invite discussion both in and out of the classroom. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-8037-2794-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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