Darnell isn't bad, but he meets his teachers' (and his own) expectations by earning poor grades and getting into trouble for his attitude. After he halfheartedly decides to work on the school paper, he's as surprised as anyone when his offhand idea—making a vacant lot into a garden where the homeless can raise their own vegetables, rather than paving it for parking—is picked up by the local newspaper and widely praised. Spurred by success and by curiosity about the contrasting lives of his dad, who has a good job, and Dad's Vietnam buddy Sweeby, now homeless, Darnell interviews Sweeby and gains insight into the difficulties many African-Americans experience in getting a decent job. Myers gets things right, especially the banter and concerns of kids like Darnell, who, even with real talents and a stable family, may "fall through the cracks" of a school without the resources or will to engage them; and the fate of Darnell's proposal, which is realistically presented as simplistic as well as imaginative. The book itself is not simplistic, as the deftly drawn characters have both strengths and weaknesses. Many readers—and not just those in multiracial, big-city areas like the one depicted here—will recognize themselves in Darnell and his friends. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-32096-5
Page Count: 106
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
Illegal immigrant sisters learn a lot about themselves when their family faces deportation in this compelling contemporary drama. Immigrants from Bangladesh, Nadira, her older sister Aisha and their parents live in New York City with expired visas. Fourteen-year-old Nadira describes herself as “the slow-wit second-born” who follows Aisha, the family star who’s on track for class valedictorian and a top-rate college. Everything changes when post-9/11 government crack-downs on Muslim immigrants push the family to seek asylum in Canada where they are turned away at the border and their father is arrested by U.S. immigration. The sisters return to New York living in constant fear of detection and trying to pretend everything is normal. As months pass, Aisha falls apart while Nadira uses her head in “a right way” to save her father and her family. Nadira’s need for acceptance by her family neatly parallels the family’s desire for acceptance in their adopted country. A perceptive peek into the lives of foreigners on the fringe. (endnote) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4169-0351-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Ginee Seo/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
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
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