A strong and accessible resource for both school reports and elective reading.
A rich and resourceful guide to how families are made.
The book opens with a reassuring introduction reminding readers that human reproduction takes many different forms, and each one is valid. This sets the tone for the remaining chapters: “Baby-Making Basics,” “Insemination,” “In Vitro Fertilization,” “Beyond Assisted Reproduction,” “Donor-Conceived Perspectives,” and “Family Is What You Make It.” The book features real-life stories to make the content more accessible, but even explanations that involve complex topics such as DNA or the details of IVF are written in clear language that is easy to understand. One of the strongest chapters is the one that explores nature versus nurture through the lens of people conceived through donor sperm or eggs. It highlights the examples of four people in their mid-20s, each of whom grew up in a different family but who share the same anonymous sperm donor. It describes, among other things, their parents’ decisions and characteristics they each share with their donor and the families that raised them. The same chapter clearly differentiates sex and gender and describes the regulation of the donor industry in the U.S. The book is nuanced, bringing to the forefront the validity of all families along with answers to the questions young people might have about themselves and others. The attractive color diagrams and simple but engaging illustrations elevate and enhance the text.
A strong and accessible resource for both school reports and elective reading. (glossary, source notes, selected bibliography, further information, index) (Nonfiction. 11-16)Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781728424545
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
Congolese-American Sophie makes a harrowing trek through a war-torn jungle to protect a young bonobo.
On her way to spend the summer at the bonobo sanctuary her mother runs, 14-year-old Sophie rescues a sickly baby bonobo from a trafficker. Though her Congolese mother is not pleased Sophie paid for the ape, she is proud that Sophie works to bond with Otto, the baby. A week before Sophie's to return home to her father in Miami, her mother must take advantage
of a charter flight to relocate some apes, and she leaves Sophie with Otto and the sanctuary workers. War breaks out, and after missing a U.N. flight out, Sophie must hide herself and Otto from violent militants and starving villagers. Unable to take Otto out of the country, she decides finding her mother hundreds of miles to the north is her only choice. Schrefer jumps from his usual teen suspense to craft this well-researched tale of jungle survival set during a fictional conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Realistic characters (ape and human) deal with disturbing situations described in graphic, but never gratuitous detail. The lessons Sophie learns about her childhood home, love and what it means to be endangered will resonate with readers.
Even if some hairbreadth escapes test credulity, this is a great next read for fans of our nearest ape cousins or survival adventure. (map, author's note, author Q&A) (Adventure. 12-16)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-16576-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Strongly felt, if overstuffed, family drama.
Kindness ultimately prevails, but not before hard times and ugly parochialism have their ways with several small-town residents, particularly three orphaned and then abandoned children.
Cast in the voices of the four Loney children, their neighbors, their dead parents and other witnesses living or otherwise, Porter’s free-verse poems tell a bleak story in plain, bleak language. The children are left to shift for themselves through a hard Saskatchewan winter after a series of miseries. First, their drunkard father freezes to death on the porch after being locked out, then their harsh stepmother abruptly departs with a traveling con man. Finally, the eldest, Randall, goes off to war (this is 1941). Not surprisingly, 14-year-old Nora and her two younger brothers quickly find themselves in desperate straits. The quiet acts of charity that help them get by are almost hidden beneath the weight of the local gossips’ cruel attitudes, the forced departures of the town’s German school teacher and a minister’s daughter sexually abused by her father and such less-public miseries as a postmistress who intercepts the money that Randall sends home and a lonely doctor who discourages his daughter’s recovery from polio. Though an extended side story about Randall’s experiences as a downed aviator in Nazi territory comes off as tangential, the admirably resilient Loneys well merit the ending’s reunions and new lives.
Strongly felt, if overstuffed, family drama. (Historical fiction/verse. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55498-095-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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