A neat, suspenseful mystery tailor-made for young readers. (Mystery. 10-14)
This exciting mystery-suspense novel takes readers to faraway Iceland.
Written as one of a set of seven linked novels to be released simultaneously, this story easily stands on its own. Seventeen-year-old Rennie has serious trouble getting along with his superstrict, military dad and has engaged in serious rebellion since his mom died. As the novel opens, Rennie finds himself close to death, stumbling alone through a massive field of snow and ice, waiting to freeze. Rennie’s grandfather has died, leaving a request that Rennie go to Iceland to memorialize the enigmatic woman who had saved him after a plane crash in World War II. There, he stays with teenage Brynja and her father and grandfather, the doctor who also helped Rennie’s grandfather. Brynja, responding to Rennie’s insolence, treats him with open hostility from the start. Rennie quickly learns that a murder mystery festers in the tiny village. As he learns more, he wonders if Brynja’s family members are victims or culprits. When he uncovers the first real evidence of murder, however, he becomes the next possible victim. McClintock writes with her usual simple prose that can appeal to a broad audience, scattering little clues for astute readers and highlighting Iceland’s interesting culture. Rennie’s defiant character will appeal to many reluctant readers, who may be moved to try another in the series.
A neat, suspenseful mystery tailor-made for young readers. (Mystery. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55469-950-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
A satisfying story of family, friendship and small-town cooperation in a 21st-century world.
Sent to stay with octogenarian relatives for the summer, 14-year-old Mike ends up coordinating a community drive to raise $40,000 for the adoption of a Romanian orphan. He’ll never be his dad's kind of engineer, but he learns he’s great at human engineering.
Mike’s math learning disability is matched by his widower father's lack of social competence; the Giant Genius can’t even reliably remember his son’s name. Like many of the folks the boy comes to know in Do Over, Penn.—his great-uncle Poppy silent in his chair, the multiply pierced-and-tattooed Gladys from the bank and “a homeless guy” who calls himself Past—Mike feels like a failure. But in spite of his own lack of confidence, he provides the kick start they need to cope with their losses and contribute to the campaign. Using the Internet (especially YouTube), Mike makes use of town talents and his own webpage design skills and entrepreneurial imagination. Math-definition chapter headings (Compatible Numbers, Zero Property, Tessellations) turn out to apply well to human actions in this well-paced, first-person narrative. Erskine described Asperger’s syndrome from the inside in Mockingbird (2010). Here, it’s a likely cause for the rift between father and son touchingly mended at the novel's cinematic conclusion.
A satisfying story of family, friendship and small-town cooperation in a 21st-century world. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 9, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25505-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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