Filled with enough characters and plot for two novels, Yeh’s nimbly voiced, combination fish-out-of-water, personal...
When 12-year-old GiGi moves from a trailer park in South Carolina to an upscale community on Long Island, she decides to reinvent herself.
GiGi is short for Galileo Galilei, and her older sister and guardian, DiDi, a beautiful, uneducated hairdresser, has always encouraged her to reach for the stars. So when DiDi wins a million dollars in a bake-off, she moves them 800 miles north and enrolls GiGi in the ritzy Hill Prep. GiGi has always followed DiDi’s “Recipe for Success,” earning perfect grades by studying 150 percent. But GiGi longs for friends and fun, so she concocts a different recipe for herself, starting with a new name. Of course, not everyone in her swanky school is receptive to the girl with the hairdresser sister and Dollar Store shoes, and Yeh does a good job of making what could be clichéd characters, such as the snotty rich girl, come across as layered and original instead. The discovery of a surprising but credible family secret leads to a moving finish, though GiGi’s personality in this part of the story feels inconsistent. Many chapters end with a fun (food snobs beware) recipe from GiGi’s dead mother’s cookbook, featuring ingredients such as condensed soup or instant pudding mix.
Filled with enough characters and plot for two novels, Yeh’s nimbly voiced, combination fish-out-of-water, personal transformation and emotional family tale is also stuffed with charm. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-23662-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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PROFILES
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
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