Hobbs (How Far Would You Have Gotten If I Hadn't Called You Back?, 1995) takes on a sheaf of hot topics in this soapy, overstuffed tale of three friends helping a fourth who has a penchant for making bad choices. When Kit announces that she's four months pregnant and has to stay in bed, Megan, Mia, and Elaine rally around. For the privilege of waiting on her passive, fretful friend, Megan cuts class, sneaks out at night, and lies to her parents, while also fending off the physical advances of her boyfriend, fixing up Mia with her older brother, writing an inflammatory article (much of it quoted) for the school newspaper on safe and unsafe sex, engaging in a one-sided debate on the availability of condoms at school, and learning that the baby's football-hero father is HIV- positive. Amid much soul-searching, Megan becomes celebrated for defiantly distributing copies of her article after it is axed, and gets Kit to the hospital when she collapses. The baby is delivered, but between her manipulative mother and boozy grandmother, her future looks bleak. Having given the father what he deserves, Hobbs parks him on the sidelines and gives Kit short shrift, too, as Megan, Mia, and Elaine float off to the prom. Some food for thought, dished out with a heavy hand. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-531-09540-1
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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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