In spare verse that echoes the percussive sound of rap music, the story of a boy and a gun. The narrator (of middle-school age or older) admits that at his school, ``You're a fool if you can't get your hand on a gun,'' and tells a familiar story of a bully, the need to feel in command in an out-of-control environment where there is little parental support. Attempting to threaten his tormentor with his father's gun, the narrator is thwarted by his friend, and both are wounded—a ghastly path to absorbing and rejecting the horror of violence. Diaz's digitally manipulated watercolor-and-acrylic paintings resemble, alternately, stained glass and African sculpture in their monumentality and broad planes of color. Both text and images capture the tension and fear of an urban schoolyard menaced by guns; the implied acceptance of the ease of obtaining a firearm is utterly chilling. While a picture book in format, this could be used very effectively with older children. (Picture book. 6-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8037-1948-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
SEEN & HEARD
Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay.
Renowned Latin American writer Alvarez has created another story about cultural identity, but this time the primary character is 11-year-old Miguel Guzmán.
When Tía Lola arrives to help the family, Miguel and his hermana, Juanita, have just moved from New York City to Vermont with their recently divorced mother. The last thing Miguel wants, as he's trying to fit into a predominantly white community, is a flamboyant aunt who doesn't speak a word of English. Tía Lola, however, knows a language that defies words; she quickly charms and befriends all the neighbors. She can also cook exotic food, dance (anywhere, anytime), plan fun parties, and tell enchanting stories. Eventually, Tía Lola and the children swap English and Spanish ejercicios, but the true lesson is "mutual understanding." Peppered with Spanish words and phrases, Alvarez makes the reader as much a part of the "language" lessons as the characters. This story seamlessly weaves two culturaswhile letting each remain intact, just as Miguel is learning to do with his own life. Like all good stories, this one incorporates a lesson just subtle enough that readers will forget they're being taught, but in the end will understand themselves, and others, a little better, regardless of la lengua nativa—the mother tongue.
Simple, bella, un regalo permenente: simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-80215-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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