Quietly awe-inspiring.
In this novel based on the award-winning documentary Seuls, three young refugees journey to Canada.
Fearless, bug-loving Afshin lives in war-torn Tehran, Iran. As Afshin approaches the age to enlist, his parents become fearful for him and decide to send him to a new country. Contemplative loner Alain, who lives in Bujumbura, Burundi, worries about his father, who’s serving in the army, and savors moments with his beloved mother. After his father’s sudden imprisonment, Alain and his family receive threats and must flee. Patricia yearns for a life where she can attend school and access the wealth she sees around her instead of helping her mother sell drinks to rich people in Kampala, Uganda. When she joins a softball team and falls in love with another girl, her parents send her away to escape the persecution that’s sure to follow. Although their reason for leaving differs, each of the protagonists seeks asylum in Canada. With considerable care, Tom succinctly conveys not only their pain, but also their joy and hope. Their stories slowly come to life through alternating first-person perspectives. The author also makes use of the second person to reel readers in and immerse them in the characters’ feelings of turmoil. Baillairgé’s dramatic illustrations add depth to Tom’s words, translated from French. Information on the real Afshin, Alain, and Patricia is appended.
Quietly awe-inspiring. (glossary) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781773069272
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many.
Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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