Josh, 15, lives with his father and older half-brother, Nathan, in a cabin in the wilderness 100 miles from Anchorage, Alaska. Living there was Nathan’s idea; he is full of high-minded ideas about nature that are rigorous but not always realistic. Josh, a pretty good woodsman, would rather live in a place where he could enjoy friends, girls, video games, and hockey, but when he kills a bear that is charging them, Nathan reacts with fury. Josh and his father—who, to Josh’s chagrin, would follow Nathan anywhere—learn that Nathan identifies closely with the bears; he decides that he can’t live with them because they are meat- eaters, and moves into an elderly neighbor’s empty cabin. When the neighbor’s relatives (including a pretty 14-year-old girl) come to spend a weekend at the cabin, Josh hopes the conflicts of interest will precipitate his move back to town. In the end, it is Nathan’s risky involvement with the bears that forces the issue. Vanasse (A Distant Enemy, 1997) pulls readers into the story from the outset, and her sensitively drawn characters display a realistic mix of love and loyalty. The complex interplay of feelings in this troubled family, set against the pristine beauty of backwoods Alaska, imbues an already compelling read with a refreshing combination of action and psychological depth. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: March 22, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-91421-3
Page Count: 165
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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