Recurrent nightmares and a strong feeling that his mother is hiding something haunt a teenager in this ethereal novel from Wynne-Jones (The Maestro, 1996, etc.). At 15, Stephen has disturbing dreams of a tree, a fire, and a baby crying—dreams he seems to have “inherited” from his older brother, Marcus, who left home four years ago. He can’t keep them from his loving, hovering mother Brenda, but he can refuse the psychotherapy and other treatments that didn’t work for Marcus. While his social life moves in a promising direction, toward friendship with beautiful, brilliant Virginia Skye, his inner turmoil, driven by lack of sleep and his lingering guilt over the departure of his father, Doug, gives rise to tensions at home. Wynne-Jones seldom flatly describes a character’s feelings or state of mind; instead, he conveys them through quick, telling details and comments, or heavily symbolic background events. Stephen is surrounded by an unusual, distinctive supporting cast, and compelled by a series of artfully revealed hints that lead at last to truth: Doug and Brenda stole him away from his neglectful birth parents when Stephen was only a baby. Brenda’s lies, Doug’s departure, even the nightmares—linked to suppressed memories—all arise from that act, but Stephen is strong enough to weather the storm, and wise enough to offer Brenda an olive branch at the end. An intense study in friendship and troubled family relations, in which the steadiest characters are the teenagers. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-7894-2495-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in...
This is almost like a play for 18 voices, as Grimes (Stepping Out with Grandma Mac, not reviewed, etc.) moves her narration among a group of high school students in the Bronx.
The English teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wesley, his response to a month of reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Soon there’s an open-mike poetry reading, sponsored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then later, every week. The chapters in the students’ voices alternate with the poems read by that student, defiant, shy, terrified. All of them, black, Latino, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alienation endemic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appealing voices. Among them: Janelle, who is tired of being called fat; Leslie, who finds friendship in another who has lost her mom; Diondra, who hides her art from her father; Tyrone, who has faith in words and in his “moms”; Devon, whose love for books and jazz gets jeers. Beyond those capsules are rich and complex teens, and their tentative reaching out to each other increases as through the poems they also find more of themselves. Steve writes: “But hey! Joy / is not a crime, though / some people / make it seem so.”
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in the poetry. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2569-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
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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