Ten-year-old Junior’s summer vacation promises to be as quiet as American suburbia was in 1956. He’s trying to save money for a bike while enjoying outings with his friends, and hoping that his father will stay in a good mood. Junior’s father is a WWII veteran who is carrying the unresolved burden of a traumatic wartime experience. He vents his anger against one of his son’s friends who has polio by forbidding his son to play with him. Never mind that Junior has had his vaccine and that the polio is no longer contagious. When he comes home early from work one day and finds the boys together in the backyard, his anger escalates into violence. Only when Junior accidentally uncovers a box with his father’s war mementos, including a Silver Star, does Dad begin to talk about the death of a close friend in a fiery plane crash. It takes a fire in the town and Dad’s dramatic rescue of a boy trapped on a second-floor porch to cure the post-traumatic stress disorder. It is difficult to accept that this father is so violently intolerant of polio and is able to undergo so quick a cure for his wartime stress. There have not been children’s stories dealing with this degree of PTSD in WWII vets. Perhaps another one will be more successful. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 9, 2002
ISBN: 0-374-33057-3
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay.
Renowned Latin American writer Alvarez has created another story about cultural identity, but this time the primary character is 11-year-old Miguel Guzmán.
When Tía Lola arrives to help the family, Miguel and his hermana, Juanita, have just moved from New York City to Vermont with their recently divorced mother. The last thing Miguel wants, as he's trying to fit into a predominantly white community, is a flamboyant aunt who doesn't speak a word of English. Tía Lola, however, knows a language that defies words; she quickly charms and befriends all the neighbors. She can also cook exotic food, dance (anywhere, anytime), plan fun parties, and tell enchanting stories. Eventually, Tía Lola and the children swap English and Spanish ejercicios, but the true lesson is "mutual understanding." Peppered with Spanish words and phrases, Alvarez makes the reader as much a part of the "language" lessons as the characters. This story seamlessly weaves two culturaswhile letting each remain intact, just as Miguel is learning to do with his own life. Like all good stories, this one incorporates a lesson just subtle enough that readers will forget they're being taught, but in the end will understand themselves, and others, a little better, regardless of la lengua nativa—the mother tongue.
Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-80215-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The book is a cute, but rather standard offering from Avi (Tom, Babette, and Simon, p. 776, etc.).
An adolescent mouse named Poppy is off on a romantic tryst with her rebel boyfriend when they are attacked by Mr. Ocax, the owl who rules over the area.
He kills the boyfriend, but Poppy escapes and Mr. Ocax vows to catch her. Mr. Ocax has convinced all the mice that he is their protector when, in fact, he preys on them mercilessly. When the mice ask his permission to move to a new house, he refuses, blaming Poppy for his decision. Poppy suspects that there is another reason Mr. Ocax doesn't want them to move and investigates to clear her name. With the help of a prickly old porcupine and her quick wits, Poppy defeats her nemesis and her own fears, saving her family in the bargain.
The book is a cute, but rather standard offering from Avi (Tom, Babette, and Simon, p. 776, etc.). (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-531-09483-9
Page Count: 147
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
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