Times are hard for Blessing and her elderly grandmother, Monnie, and they’re about to get harder. Hermes (A Perfect Place, above, etc.) tells this story in the voice of the 11-year-old protagonist as she comes to term with the impending death of her guardian and beloved grandmother. Monnie has cared for Blessing for nine years, since Blessing’s mother died, leaving the two-year-old without parents. Her father had died before her birth in a mine accident that also killed her grandfather. Blessing, seemingly ill-named, is in fact blessed with a small but secure home, a school to attend, a beautiful singing voice, and a grandmother who loves her more than anything. Blessing’s world starts to fall apart when Monnie admits what Blessing has begun to suspect: Monnie is dying. Readers go through the predictable stages of grief as Blessing prepares for the inevitable and prays for the miracle that refuses to come. Maudlin and manipulative, this pulls every heartstring: here is Blessing sneaking out to look in on the families that Monnie has picked out as guardians; there she is fingering the violin that Monnie played while she sang along; and at the hospital, the kind doctor is explaining the hard facts to her. But at the end, all the stops are pulled out as Blessing bathes her grandmother’s body for burial. Blessing’s voice seems too mature and remarkably reflective for an 11-year-old mountain girl in the 1940s. The way Blessing and Monnie love the mountains and their neighbors, it seems hard to believe the neighbors would not be bringing food and helping out with the cleaning until Monnie is within days of her death. Indeed, Blessing attends school and leaves the dying grandmother alone all day long. No teacher intervenes and no church ladies step in to help until the very last moment. Uneven and almost unbearably sad, this is a tale that drowns in its own good intentions. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97452-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2002
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
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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