When their parents almost die in an automobile accident, Arlie and Michael’s plan for a fun visit with their favorite aunt becomes a nightmare. Arlie wrestles with her own heartbreak as she copes without her loving father, and grapples with her guilt as she struggles with her bitter feelings about her critical mother. As Mom slips into a coma, a new girl in her fifth-grade class mysteriously appears just as her class starts a school play. This girl looks and acts just like Mom, in fact, she is Mom, and Arlie suddenly realizes that this twilight-zone experience might not be a curse. At the same time her brother’s needs are great, and the tenderness between Arlie and her brother reveal a girl who is growing up and taking it upon herself to protect and guide her vulnerable brother. Arlie is a likable protagonist who balances her ability to compartmentalize her grief while she’s at school as well as face her internal terrors. Willner-Pardo’s exploration of personal fears and desires as well as familial relationships and responsibilities resonate with authenticity. Spunky meets spooky. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2004
ISBN: 0-618-43020-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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