Growing up in Warsaw with Mr. Singer offers more than a day of pleasure to families who joined him In My Father's Court, from which fourteen of these nineteen episodes are adapted. But the elevenish contemporary of "Itchele" who lacks the East European frame of reference that these autobiographical sketches demand may have trouble relating to the bittersweetness of his Hasidic upbringing as the lonely son of the rabbi of Krochmalna Street; to his mysterious joy-fear on contemplating the Cabala; to the esoteric character of his family's Jewish orthodoxy; to the distance between Jew and Gentile so absolute and so very enduring. . . . Mr. Singer's words as Grandfather-storyteller are best read aloud and interpreted by a grandfather who shares his memories, who can communicate Singer's hindsights with the authority and spirit of his insights, who can mediate between Singer's remoteness to the child and his greatness.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1969
ISBN: 0374416966
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1969
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A satisfying story of family, friendship and small-town cooperation in a 21st-century world.
Sent to stay with octogenarian relatives for the summer, 14-year-old Mike ends up coordinating a community drive to raise $40,000 for the adoption of a Romanian orphan. He’ll never be his dad's kind of engineer, but he learns he’s great at human engineering.
Mike’s math learning disability is matched by his widower father's lack of social competence; the Giant Genius can’t even reliably remember his son’s name. Like many of the folks the boy comes to know in Do Over, Penn.—his great-uncle Poppy silent in his chair, the multiply pierced-and-tattooed Gladys from the bank and “a homeless guy” who calls himself Past—Mike feels like a failure. But in spite of his own lack of confidence, he provides the kick start they need to cope with their losses and contribute to the campaign. Using the Internet (especially YouTube), Mike makes use of town talents and his own webpage design skills and entrepreneurial imagination. Math-definition chapter headings (Compatible Numbers, Zero Property, Tessellations) turn out to apply well to human actions in this well-paced, first-person narrative. Erskine described Asperger’s syndrome from the inside in Mockingbird (2010). Here, it’s a likely cause for the rift between father and son touchingly mended at the novel's cinematic conclusion.
A satisfying story of family, friendship and small-town cooperation in a 21st-century world. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 9, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25505-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
Buy it. Read it. Share it.
The last week at Scouting camp highlights accomplishments and humiliations that last a lifetime.
Aiden, a fat, biracial (Filipino and White), soon-to-be high schooler, is in his last week of Boy Scout camp in 1995. Each day documents events, from bonding over fireside songs and learning important skills to the micro- and macroaggressions that follow an adolescent boy of color who presents as effeminate and is queer. As the week moves on, readers learn more about Aiden and his life, from his stressful home with an emotionally abusive father to his love of Catholicism and being an altar server. The stress of a new school, bullies who are ever present, and struggles with identity drive Aiden to a breaking point, one that’s familiar to many young people. The monochromatic illustrations, sometimes highlighted with red, orange, and yellow, are timeless moments of a remembered childhood. The use of red to highlight the tangible (firelight, a Swiss Army knife) and represent the intangible (passion, sorrow, and hope) is a master class in simplicity. But the true star of this book is the writing, which describes a boy who could live in any decade on his journey of self-discovery. This is a story that will be read and reread, and for some, it will be the defining book of their adolescence.
Buy it. Read it. Share it. (afterword, resources) (Graphic fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62779-641-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
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