A young girl’s bumpy life begets an uplifting narrative journey.
In High’s middle-grade road-trip novel, a tween searches for her missing mother, who suffers from mental illness and addiction.
Ruby Bean hasn’t seen her mom in a week. This has happened before; 33-year-old Ruthie is afflicted with substance-use and schizo-affective disorders and occasionally disappears from her Georgia home. Luckily, Ruby’s grandparents live nearby, and she can always rely on Aunt Marion, Ruthie’s older sister. Ruby and Marion put their heads together to track where Ruthie has been and where she’s likely headed, leading them to such metropolises as Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Along the way, they run into Ruby’s estranged father (whom she’d never previously met) and people living on the street (Ruthie’s preferred crowd). Two among the unhoused, bubbly Daisy and warmhearted Benny, even join their search. Ruby struggles with wanting her mother back while also craving a more conventional kind of life. Their quest ultimately leads them all to a crime that, unfortunately, Ruthie may have committed. High ably tackles the serious issues depicted herein; Ruby unequivocally loves and worries about her troubled mother, but she’s also fed up with constantly explaining Ruthie’s condition to others. The narrative nevertheless remains firmly upbeat as Ruby, usually a loner, scours the East Coast with her devoted aunt and newly earned friends. Their road trip brims with misadventures (including the tribulations of New York parking) and humor (Daisy and Benny playfully bicker over which rock band sings a certain song). Ruby’s colorful descriptions further enliven the pages, from “green-ink trees” and a “blue ceiling” sky to her affectionate nickname for Marion’s bright-yellow compact car: “Kiki Sunshine.” The novel’s heady mix of realism and buoyancy carries all the way to the extraordinary ending. Dzamesi’s spectacular black-and-white artwork renders such indelible recurring images as Ruby’s big, soulful eyes and Daisy’s even bigger hat.
A young girl’s bumpy life begets an uplifting narrative journey.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781947159877
Page Count: 184
Publisher: One Elm Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
