Misses the mark almost completely.
The first in a planned series is slight in length as well as in concept.
Robin—short for Robinson—lives with his grandmother “on the toughest street in the toughest hood in the tough city of Ironwood.” Devoted to school and to his grandmother, he spends his days outside school at the Barbara Jordan Community Center and helping out at his gramma's Shrimp Shack. Although readers may relate to the bullying and gang violence Robin encounters, they will most likely not swallow his teacher’s-pet narrative voice (“He'd already done his summer reading, an amazing novel called Bud, Not Buddy...and written a great five-paragraph essay too”). His lack of street smarts is similarly unbelievable: Even readers who aren't skeptical when Robin cheerfully asks the local bully, “You all ready for school?” will surely struggle when, out of just slightly more than idle curiosity, Robin goes to a spot where he sees a gang member hiding something and finds almost exactly enough money to save the Center from closing. An abrupt cliffhanger leaves the story completely unresolved, but with so many flaws, it's hard to imagine there will be much clamoring for the follow-up volume.
Misses the mark almost completely. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62250-000-0
Page Count: 126
Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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