As 14-year-old Taswell, a virgin, relates in this epistolary novel the progress of her pregnancy, she draws readers into her supreme self-confidence, toward her unshakable conviction that she is about to bring forth a prophet. From the small convent school where she has been sent because her grandmother Mavis doesn’t quite know what to do with her, Taswell writes letters. At first her case appears to be one of ordinary self-absorption, common among teenagers, but soon it becomes clear that Taswell’s belief that the world revolves around her has reached monumental proportions. She writes to the beautiful and self-possessed Mavis, to accuse her of being more concerned with her own life and career than with Taswell herself; she writes to her father, Charles, who after several marriages seems to have found a woman he really loves; and she writes to a kind of guardian spirit named Pim. Taswell holds her secret close, and readers watch with a kind of dread and fascination as it unfolds. She enlists a schoolmate to be her midwife, and as news of her pregnancy spreads, Taswell faces the school authorities and her relatives with equal ferocity. While the denouement is a bit too easy, readers will be tied into the claustrophobic interior of Taswell’s heart for the duration. With great clarity and precision, Collins shows how all the strength and good wishes of the nuns who teach Taswell, and the shortcomings of the relatives who love her, are not enough; this heroine will face her guardian angel, or angels, and see her own way clear. Riveting. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-97119-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
Revisiting characters from The Cook’s Family (1998), Yep again explores personal and cultural conflicts arising between the generations in a Chinese-American family. Suddenly saddled with caring for four younger siblings after a wealthy businessman hires her widowed mother as a governess—or amah—for his daughter, Stephanie, Amy Chin is forced to miss several ballet rehearsals for Cinderella, to listen to glowing accounts of Stephanie’s sophistication, and to accept expensive clothing and other gifts from her. While gaining new insight into how Cinderella’s stepsisters must have felt, Amy’s understandable resentment is compounded by the news that Stephanie will be moving in while her father is away on a trip. Yep builds that feeling to fever pitch, then dispels it by casting Stephanie as a lonely child hurt by one parent’s death and the other’s neglect; becoming friends, Stephanie and Amy clear the air and mend some fences with their well-meaning parents in a climactic face-off. The characters, most of them familiar from previous appearances, are distinct if not particularly complex, the San Francisco setting is vividly drawn, and the issues are laid out in plain terms and tidily resolved. It’s formulaic, but not entirely superficial. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23040-8
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
McLaren (Inside the Walls of Troy, 1996, etc.) writes of a girl’s wish to understand her new surroundings, and to be understood by those who love her. When Kate’s father decides to move back to his homeland to work as a lawyer for Hawaiian sovereignty, Kate is devastated at the thought of leaving their comfortable home and affluent lifestyle (not to mention a beloved pet) behind. From the first she hates Oahu and the seedy little apartment the family moves into. Worse, Kate enters school and discovers what it is to be part of a despised minority; she is half Hawaiian, but her fair looks brand her as haole, looked on with contempt at best. Even in her family she experiences rejection; her Hawaiian relatives more or less ignore Kate when they’re not fighting with her father over the means they should use to gain their freedom from the US government. Kate’s past training in ballet comes to her rescue when she learns the hula, the historic interpretive dance that is a major part of Hawaiian culture. To her surprise, her relatives realize that she is not just learning to dance beautifully but is coming to respect their traditions and way of life. It’s a fine story, made even more interesting through its the unflinching look at a place most mainlanders think of as a tropical paradise. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-82393-2
Page Count: 143
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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