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PIECES OF ME

Mira, alone in a basement apartment with a strange, controlling mother, has only her nature books and animal sketches, until she meets Cath and finds her first friend. Taut, first-person narration carries readers to this 15-year-old’s deepest places of insecurity and isolation. Even with her bold, sassy new friend and inspirational school art classes, however, unhappiness still dogs Mira. Her mother compulsively knits and squirrels away thousands of garish sweaters; her benign father surfaces only now and again. Many teens will relate to Mira’s tattered relationships with her parents, as well as her broiling resentment. Gingras divides chapters into short passages that provide needed pauses between Mira’s distilled, distraught reflections. After her father’s sudden death, a fallout with Cath and an unrealized crush on her art teacher, Mira comes undone. Some teens might find culminating conversations with a school counselor too outwardly melodramatic and expository, especially after spending so many pages covertly inside Mira’s troubled mind. Stronger moments surface in the deft handling of nature imagery: a spindly maple, the thrilling rush of feathers, a solitary moose drinking from a childhood lake. (Fiction. YA)

Pub Date: April 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-55453-242-1

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Kids Can

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009

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IF HE HAD BEEN WITH ME

There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.

The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.

Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.

There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.   (Fiction. 14 & up)

Pub Date: April 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013

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INDIVISIBLE

An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.

A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.

Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.

An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)

Pub Date: May 4, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021

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