This powerfully vivid story has the immediacy of Napoli’s always-immaculate prose, coupled with a basis in family lore and urban history that make it irresistible. Nine-year-old Beniamino loves his mama, his family, his city of Napoli and all of its scents and sights. His mother puts him on a cargo ship to America without her, for reasons that he may not ever figure out, arming him with the parables of his Jewish and Napoletano heritage and a new pair of shoes. Renamed Dom Napoli at Ellis Island, he tells his first-person tale of survival, exploration and learning on the streets of lower Manhattan at the end of the 19th century. Careful and smart, Dom allies himself with a pair of boys, one under control of a vicious padrone, buying huge sandwiches and then reselling them, cut in parts, on Wall Street from a borrowed cart. From his first days sleeping in a barrel to teaching his widowed landlady to make his favorite foods, Dom’s voice and presence make his life as real and as tangible as possible. History come to vibrant life for middle-grade readers and almost anyone whose ancestors came from foreign lands. (Historical fiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2005
ISBN: 0-385-74653-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005
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
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Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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