Music and baseball history combine to convince sixth-grader Thelonious Monk Thomas that Destiny, Florida, should be his hometown.
When Uncle Raymond, a Vietnam vet still hurting from the war and from his dead sister’s anti-war activities, brings orphaned Theo to Destiny in May 1974, he warns him not to get attached. But in Rest Easy, their new rooming house, Theo finds a piano to play and a determined landlady, dance teacher Miss Sister Grandersole, who encourages his musical gift just as energetically as his angry uncle discourages it. Theo also finds a friend in classmate Anabel Johnson, who loathes dance but loves baseball. She enlists him in a project to find evidence of major league baseball players who lived in town 20 years earlier. Did Hank Aaron once stay where Theo lives? Theo tells of his first weeks in Destiny in a not-completely-convincing first-person, present-tense narrative that moves quickly through the days, culminating in his accompanying a dance recital and finding a way to stay as well as a possible Hank Aaron sighting. It’s puzzling that no one mentions skin color, not even when characters talk about Aaron in the 1950s, when the “tall, skinny guy” would have been living and dining in accommodations separate from most of his teammates.
Doesn’t quite hit the right notes. (Historical fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-53824-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s a monster in Sidwell, Massachusetts, that can only be seen at night or, as Twig reveals, if passersby are near her house.
It’s her older brother, James, born with wings just like every male in the Fowler line for the last 200 years. They were cursed by the Witch of Sidwell, left brokenhearted by their forebear Lowell Fowler. Twig and James are tired of the secret and self-imposed isolation. Lonely Twig narrates, bringing the small town and its characters to life, intertwining events present and past, and describing the effects of the spell on her fractured family’s daily life. Longing for some normalcy and companionship, she befriends new-neighbor Julia while James falls in love with Julia’s sister, Agate—only to learn they are descendants of the Witch. James and Agate seem as star-crossed as their ancestors, especially when the townspeople attribute a spate of petty thefts and graffiti protesting the development of the woods to the monster and launch a hunt. The mix of romance and magic is irresistible and the tension, compelling. With the help of friends and through a series of self-realizations and discoveries, Twig grows more self-assured. She is certain she knows how to change the curse. In so doing, Twig not only changes James’ fate, but her own, for the first time feeling the fullness of family, friends and hope for the future.
Enchanting. (Magical realism. 9-12)Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-38958-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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