Sure to satisfy beginners and seasoned dancers longing to relive those first steps that made them love the craft.
Learning contemporary dance isn’t the most conventional route to earning a varsity football spot, but for Luc Waldon, it’s his only shot.
After biracial (black/white) Luc, a talented high school athlete, sustains a devastating knee injury, his coach orders him to take summer dance classes as a strength-building exercise. Since he dreams of winning a college football scholarship and hopefully playing in the NFL, Luc will do anything to retain his spot, but what he assumes will be an easy solution to his problem turns out to be far more challenging than expected. Deen (Sleight of Hand, 2015, etc.) is clearly in her element writing about dance, and every leg extension and muscle strain feels achingly authentic, as does Luc’s initial cluelessness, providing readers with an excellent introduction to dance terminology. She intertwines Luc’s journey as a dancer with a plot detailing his struggle to convince his workaholic father that time spent in the studio and away from the family lawn business is a worthy sacrifice. While the narrative zips along too quickly for some characters to become fully actualized, racial and sexual diversity is seamlessly integrated into the text. Dance is the central focus of the book, and deep reverence for the art form emanates from every page.
Sure to satisfy beginners and seasoned dancers longing to relive those first steps that made them love the craft. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4598-0920-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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