An uneven collection of stories about the new millennium from well-known YA authors. Avi’s “Oswin’s Millennium” is a powerful depiction of the life of an ill-treated slave boy who is convinced by one of the brothers that the world is about to end. Among the high points: Nancy Springer pens a surprisingly moving piece about a college disc jockey on New Year’s Eve, 1999, who starts hearing from listeners who are terrified. Natalie Babbitt’s “Tomorrow,” about a man who goes up in a balloon trying to see what the next day will be like, reads like a chapter out of Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine.” Richard Peck’s “Three Century Woman,” features one of his hilariously devilish old women; she’s not as senile as she pretends, and gets the better of some pushy reporters. At the other end of the collection, there is a bizarre muddle called “Clay” from Rita Williams-Garcia, about women who practice a form of magic that involves a clay pot containing their children’s umbilical cords; and an Austin story from Madeleine L‘Engle that recycles the pun that the millennium bug is an actual insect. There are also pieces by Janet Taylor Lisle and Michael Cadnum; the whole comprises a mixed bag, but the good outweighs the bad. (Short stories. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23458-6
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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