An illustrated collection of poems seeks to celebrate teen engagement with music in its many forms. Members of a garage band trash talk each other, a girl plays “Double Dutch with the Lord” to Aretha Franklin, a boy plays air guitar to the radio, another boy wishes devoutly for a trumpet but must settle for tuba in the school band. The poems burst with the energetic bravado of adolescence, frequently invoking the pantheon for inspiration: “In my sleep, I am / Moon / Bonham / Buddy / Blakey / 10,000 / Charlie / Watts / of / power / I am the drummer— / ‘What? OK, Mom, I’m coming!’ ” Teen concerns embed themselves in the poems, from anxiety before a performance to a desire to impress the opposite sex to parental woes: “Ba DA da da DA. / Got a brand-new guitar. / Ba DA da da DA. / Just the other day. / Ba DA da da DA. / Played it for five minutes. / Ba DA da da DA. / Then my mom took it away.” It’s a fairly lengthy collection—24 poems—and although there is some nod to girls, they by and large (and most successfully) operate from a male perspective. Newcomer Adoff’s enthusiasm for his subject comes endearingly to the fore in the section of “Backnotes,” in which he identifies the artists alluded to and includes specific selections for listening. This enthusiasm carries the collection through an inevitable unevenness and at times forced maintenance of the title motif. The illustrations, by newcomer French, are a sort of neo–Jazz Age/comic-book pastiche. The palette is dominated by purple and orange, with vigorous splatters of color as a background for boldly outlined figures. It’s a risky enterprise, a picture book specifically aimed at teens, but the striking graphics and teen-friendly subject may well make it a viable one. (Picture book/poetry. 12+)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-525-46949-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2002
A winning romance featuring wonderful worldbuilding in both the realistic and magical realms.
A passion for Dungeons & Dragons both brings together and tears apart two love-struck Ohio teens.
After a disastrous debacle with her former best friend and their Dungeons & Dragons group, 16-year-old Quinn finally has a chance to start over in a new town close to her beloved grandmother. On her first day of school, she meets Kashvi, who invites Quinn to join her D&D group’s latest livestreamed campaign. Quinn falls in easily with Kashvi and her friends, including Dungeon Master Sloane (who uses they/them pronouns), Kashvi’s twin brother, Sanjiv, and classmate Logan, whom Quinn instantly falls for. The only problem? The group has a hard and fast policy against its members dating each other. Making matters more complicated, Quinn’s grandmother has decided that Quinn and Logan are meant to be—and she’ll do whatever it takes to bring them together. As the D&D campaign ramps up, Quinn is faced with a conundrum: Can she suppress her feelings for Logan while battling imaginary dragons and real-life trolls by his side? Throughout, Boyce successfully melds humor with heartfelt moments, especially evidenced in the scenes involving Quinn’s grandmother. The portrayal of the D&D group’s dynamics is nuanced and realistic, peppered with sharp dialogue and snappy quips. Quinn and Logan’s relationship is a torturous slow burn with a payoff that’s worth the wait. Most major characters are coded white; Kashvi and Sanjiv are South Asian.
A winning romance featuring wonderful worldbuilding in both the realistic and magical realms. (Romance. 12-18)Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2024
ISBN: 9780593899205
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Small but mighty necessary reading.
A miniature manifesto for radical queer acceptance that weaves together the personal and political.
Eli, a cis gay white Jewish man, uses his own identities and experiences to frame and acknowledge his perspective. In the prologue, Eli compares the global Jewish community to the global queer community, noting, “We don’t always get it right, but the importance of showing up for other Jews has been carved into the DNA of what it means to be Jewish. It is my dream that queer people develop the same ideology—what I like to call a Global Queer Conscience.” He details his own isolating experiences as a queer adolescent in an Orthodox Jewish community and reflects on how he and so many others would have benefitted from a robust and supportive queer community. The rest of the book outlines 10 principles based on the belief that an expectation of mutual care and concern across various other dimensions of identity can be integrated into queer community values. Eli’s prose is clear, straightforward, and powerful. While he makes some choices that may be divisive—for example, using the initialism LGBTQIAA+ which includes “ally”—he always makes clear those are his personal choices and that the language is ever evolving.
Small but mighty necessary reading. (resources) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09368-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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