Culturally intriguing but dramatically dry, this story showcases the glamour and grit of Mumbai and gives readers an...
Thirteen-year-old Abby Spencer learns that the father she’s never met is a Bollywood superstar and travels from Houston to Mumbai to meet him.
Abby has been stonewalled by her pie-shop–owning single mother when she’s asked about her dad, but hereditary concerns about a bad allergic reaction bring the matter to a head. Rather incredibly, Abby’s father, Naveen Kumar—a really nice guy who just happens to be the Brad Pitt of India—immediately accepts the situation and invites her to come to Mumbai to meet him and his loving but ailing mother. Besides the establishment of the likable Abby’s mostly smooth relationship with Kumar’s household and entourage, the rest of the story involves Abby’s reaction to India, her nascent romantic relationship with handsome Shaan and her difficulty remaining mum about the fact that she’s Kumar’s daughter. Unfortunately, nice is great in a girlfriend, but for characters in a novel, spice is necessary, and there’s not enough of it in Bajaj’s pleasant but bland first-person cross-cultural tale. Nevertheless, readers will want for Abby what she wants for herself—to find her place in her two families—and should be touched and satisfied by the story’s ending.
Culturally intriguing but dramatically dry, this story showcases the glamour and grit of Mumbai and gives readers an entertaining glimpse of backstage Bollywood. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8075-6363-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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