Eight-year-old Peti doesn’t mind giving up his room to his immigrant aunt, uncle and 12-year-old cousin Gabor. Peti prefers sleeping in his parent’s room, where he feels safer. It’s 1952, and Gabor’s family has just escaped Hungary via Australia. The arrangement is anything but easy. Peti’s uncle can’t find a job; the “guests” outstay their welcome with the landlady; Gabor makes his displeasure with America known. As tensions rise, Peti begins to wish that it had been his loving grandfather Apa who made the trip instead of his sometimes mean cousin. Peti’s mother Marika takes a job of her own and continues to try to get her father out from behind the Iron Curtain. Peti befriends the local librarian, and she takes him to visit Rankin House, a stop on the Underground Railroad. That small taste of history leads Peti to appreciate the ties of his own family. With this sequel to Marika (2002), Cheng continues to chronicle in fiction stories similar to those of her own family. Short, episodic chapters and poetic prose make this a good choice for those of a literary bent. (Fiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-932425-21-7
Page Count: 136
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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