Beautifully executed.
A powerful novel in verse about a girl coping after being ripped from her home.
When 11-year-old Laura Rodríguez Colón calls 911 to save her parents from a possible overdose, authorities remove her from her home and place her into the care of Titi Silvia, her estranged aunt. Laura, who is Puerto Rican, resists “this borrowed life,” anxiously awaiting the day her parents will be released from rehab. One day, she rescues a sick, abandoned puppy she names Sparrow, and he helps her feel better about everything. When the social worker informs her that children aren’t allowed to visit the rehab center, Laura hatches a plan to train Sparrow to be a therapy dog and get inside that way. But when her parents leave without completing the program, Laura learns her stay with Titi may become permanent. Laura’s distress increases when her mother shows up at school only to be sent away, leaving Laura torn between life with her aunt and love for her flawed parents. With the help of caring friends and adults, Laura learns that creating a new home doesn’t have to mean discarding the old. The short sections written in accessible free verse create a segmented structure that mirrors Laura’s experiences and drives the storyline. The clear narrative arc and strong symbolic system make the novel cohere, and Laura’s emotional landscape is realistically contradictory. Arango’s writing is a joy to read, combining strong storytelling, compelling characters, and rich language.
Beautifully executed. (author’s note) (Verse fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9780593566183
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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