2007 NBA Finalist reviews

Sherman Alexie The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian;
illus. by Ellen Forney
     Little
     Reviewed 9/07
The line between dramatic monologue, verse novel, and standup comedy gets unequivocally — and hilariously and triumphantly — bent in this novel about coming of age on the rez. Urged on by a math teacher whose nose he has just broken, Junior, fourteen, decides to make the iffy
commute from his Spokane Indian reservation to attend high school in Reardan, a small town twenty miles away. He’s tired of his impoverished circumstances (“Adam and Eve covered their privates with figleaves; the first Indians covered their privates with their tiny hands”), but while he hopes his new school will offer him a better education, he knows the odds aren’t exactly with him: “What was I doing at Reardan whose mascot was an Indian, thereby making me the only other Indian in town?” But he makes friends (most notably the class dork Gordy), gets a girlfriend, and even (though short, nearsighted, and slightly disabled from birth defects) lands a spot on the varsity basketball team, which inevitably leads to a showdown with his own home team, led by his former best friend Rowdy. Junior’s narration is intensely alive and rat-a-tat-tat with short paragraphs and one-liners (“If God hadn’t wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn’t have given us thumbs”). The dominant mode of the novel is comic, even though there’s plenty of sadness, as when Junior’s sister manages to shake off depression long enough to elope — only to die, passed out from drinking, in a fire. Junior’s spirit, though, is unquenchable, and his style inimitable, not least in the take-no-prisoners cartoons he draws (as expertly depicted by comics artist Forney) from his bicultural experience. R.S.

Kathleen Duey Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One
     Atheneum
     Reviewed 7/07
Two parallel stories alternate in this compelling new fantasy. Sadima, marked as different by her ability to speak with animals, joins the household of the coldly brilliant, ambitious Somiss, who is obsessed with returning true magic to the world. As Sadima, in love with Somiss’s servant/companion Franklin, learns the depth of Somiss’s cruelty and selfishness, she becomes enmeshed in his powerful influence, as helpless as Franklin is to leave him. Generations later, in a society run by magic, despised second son Hahp is apprenticed to the now-wizards Somiss and Franklin. Hahp and his classmates are brutally isolated from one another in an underground training center from which only one of them will emerge; those who fail to learn the wizards’ techniques slowly starve to death. As Sadima’s and Hahp’s stories unfold, grippingly, often with episodes that resonate across the generations and alternating cliffhanger chapter endings, puzzle pieces begin to fall into place, but questions remain: how has Hahp’s society emerged from Sadima’s? And what has happened to Sadima in the interim? The twin resolutions at book’s end are only temporary pausing points in the stories’ headlong charge, but they fully earn the measure of satisfaction they give. Duey sweeps readers up in the page-turning excitement, making this one of the more promising fantasy series beginnings of recent memory. ANITA L. BURKAM

M. Sindy Felin Touching Snow
     Atheneum
     Reviewed 5/07
The daughter of a Haitian immigrant, middle-schooler Karina Lamond has grown up in an environment where physical discipline for trespasses like not clearing one’s plate is an accepted norm—but for Karina’s stepfather, “the difference between punishing kids and torturing them” is irrelevant. After her oldest sister Enid receives a life-threatening beating and an anonymous phone call brings the authorities, Karina is encouraged to find a life outside the house by volunteering at a local community center. There her friendship with Rachael, the director’s daughter, becomes more than platonic, and she begins to question the lies she told to keep “the Daddy” out of jail. Karina’s biting, almost accusing voice narrates this stomach-churning account of domestic violence with horrifying intimacy, quietly indicting all the adults who fail her, from the relatives who suggest Enid was at fault to Rachael’s father, who believes he is culturally enlightened for interpreting the incident as misunderstood discipline. Karina and her sisters are clearly victims, but they are not idealized: infected by years of constant strain and fear, they interact with cruelty as much as caring, and their scars are not simplified or erased in an easy ending. Remarkably nuanced characters give this emotionally challenging read just enough humanity to make it bearable. CLAIRE E. GROSS

Brian Selznick The Invention of Hugo Cabret; illus. by the author
     Scholastic
     Reviewed 3/07
Here’s a dilemma for the Newbery committee . . . and the Caldecott: what do you do with an illustrated novel in which neither text nor pictures can tell the story alone? Not to mention the drama to be found in the page turns themselves. A brief introduction sets the time (1931) and place (Paris) and invites readers to imagine they’re at the movies. And with a turn of the page, they are, as, over a sequence of twenty-one double-page wordless spreads, a story begins. A picture of the moon gives way to an aerial shot of Paris; day breaks as the “camera” moves into a shot of a train station, where a boy makes his way to a secret passage from which, through a peephole, he watches an old man sitting at a stall selling toys. Finally, the text begins: “From his perch behind the clock, Hugo could see everything.” The story that follows in breathtaking counterpoint is a lively one, involving the dogged Hugo, his tough little ally Isabelle, an automaton that can draw pictures, and a stage magician turned filmmaker, the real-life Georges Méliès, most famously the director of A Trip to the Moon (1902). There is a bounty of mystery and incident here, along with several excellent chase scenes expertly rendered in the atmospheric, dramatically crosshatched black-and-white (naturally) pencil drawings that make up at least a third of the book. (According to the final chapter, and putting a metafictional spin on things, there are 158 pictures and 26,159 words in the book.) The interplay between the illustrations (including several stills from Méliès’s frequently surreal films and others from the era) and text is complete genius, especially in the way Selznick moves from one to the other, depending on whether words or images are the better choice for the moment. And as in silent films, it’s always just one or the other, wordless double-spread pictures or unillustrated text, both framed in the enticing black of the silent screen. While the bookmaking is spectacular, and the binding secure but generous enough to allow the pictures to flow easily across the gutter, The Invention of Hugo Cabret is foremost good storytelling, with a sincerity and verbal ease reminiscent of Andrew Clements (a frequent Selznick collaborator) and themes of secrets, dreams, and invention that play lightly but resonantly throughout. At one point, Hugo watches in awe as Isabelle blithely picks the lock on a door. “How did you learn to do that?” he asks. “Books,” she answers. Exactly so. R.S.

Sara Zarr Story of a Girl
     Little
     Reviewed 10/07
At thirteen, Deanna is caught by her father having sex with Tommy, a seventeen-year-old. Three years later, Deanna's peers still whisper about her reputation, and her father hardly speaks to her. Deanna desperately struggles to escape her past, despite sometimes missing the way Tommy made her feel wanted. Deanna's motivations to have sex, and the consequences, are thoughtfully, honestly, and convincingly explored. A.M.M.

List of all reviews on this site