Delia is an intelligent, creative, eighth-grade student with a secret: she cannot read. No one has guessed because she memorizes material learned from discussion, watches videos instead of reading a book, and volunteers to do special projects like skits or posters instead of written reports. But she is faced with taking a major proficiency test that she knows she cannot pass. Her friend Randy also has a secret: he has not heard from his father for several weeks. A long-distance truck driver, who’s often away from home, he has always kept in constant touch with Randy. But now Randy is running out of money and food, and he’s afraid to tell anyone. Delia and Randy, along with several of their friends, are part of a Double Dutch team that will compete in a national tournament. The details and play-by-play of the Double Dutch practices and contests provide the core around which the rest of the story develops. Several other issues are addressed along the way, and are dealt with nicely by the cast of supporting characters. Delia’s friend Yolanda tells fantastic, outlandish stories about herself and her life so earnestly that even her friends are sometimes unable to know when she is telling the truth. The Tolliver twins’ threatening demeanor and attitude mask a fear of loss and separation that they manage to overcome heroically during a devastating tornado that hits their school. Even Delia and Randy’s more serious problems have happy, though not perfect, conclusions. Perhaps there are too many subplots, too many characters with too many problems, even too many happy endings, but Draper makes it work. Delia and her friends are delightful, and the reader is rooting for them all the way. A fast-paced, multi-layered story. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-84230-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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