In Cheripko's first novel, a high school senior stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that he's an alcoholic. All the signs are there: Christopher Serbo's grades are plunging, his girlfriend has called it quits, and home life with his aunt is a series of battles and deceptions. He's constantly angry and depressed, feeling out of control and unable to change. Only on the football field does Christopher find relief, and even there, as his team marches through its first undefeated season, the new coach presses him relentlessly. Christopher describes his episodes of drunkenness with brutal precision, becoming an embarrassing, pathetic figure. When his drinking becomes an open secret, his coach and a concerned teacher work out a deal that allows Christopher to finish the season and report immediately to a full-time rehabilitation program. Cheripko gives readers a glimpse of the new school's tough love approach that enables Christopher to admit that he has a problem, embark on a 12-step program, and realize that he does have the courage to help himself. If the plotting is a bit shaky—Christopher heals from a vicious beating with miraculous speed, and a deathbed scene with Aunt Catherine melodramatically ties up a loose end—Christopher's behavior, and the reasons for it, are laid out clearly enough, and the point that rules unjustly bend sometimes for a successful athlete is well taken. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-56397-514-9
Page Count: 221
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in...
This is almost like a play for 18 voices, as Grimes (Stepping Out with Grandma Mac, not reviewed, etc.) moves her narration among a group of high school students in the Bronx.
The English teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wesley, his response to a month of reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Soon there’s an open-mike poetry reading, sponsored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then later, every week. The chapters in the students’ voices alternate with the poems read by that student, defiant, shy, terrified. All of them, black, Latino, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alienation endemic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appealing voices. Among them: Janelle, who is tired of being called fat; Leslie, who finds friendship in another who has lost her mom; Diondra, who hides her art from her father; Tyrone, who has faith in words and in his “moms”; Devon, whose love for books and jazz gets jeers. Beyond those capsules are rich and complex teens, and their tentative reaching out to each other increases as through the poems they also find more of themselves. Steve writes: “But hey! Joy / is not a crime, though / some people / make it seem so.”
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in the poetry. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2569-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
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