A helpful computer program gets a depressed eighth grader over a tough spot in this rough-hewn, unabashed fantasy. Pollard—his mother and beloved dog suddenly gone, his father bitter and distant—sees his life and grades slipping away, although he believes a fresh start is possible if he could only graduate with the rest of his class, get a date with Donna Ames, and see the Red Sox win a pennant. On a visit to the school's computer lab, he gets not the remedial language arts lesson he's expecting, but Conner, a ``compensatory program'' that talks back, understands his jokes, knows everything about him, does his homework, and creates realistic simulations that allow him to learn new baseball and dating skills. Rendal (The Girl Who Listened To Sinks, 1993) uses Conner to deliver not-very-subtle lessons about coping with loss, growing up, showing compassion (until gently corrected, Pollard habitually uses words like feeb and retard), and admitting that his mother has moved out (in his first-person narration, he declared her dead initially). After this revelation and some cathartic howling at the moon, Pollard's misery vanishes and Conner signs off. The story is marred by sheaves of unanswered questions and dangling plot threads, but readers will love Conner: part homework machine, part therapist, part best friend, wholly touched by magic. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-025404-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Drawing on her experience with a relief organization on the Thai border, Ho tells the story of a Cambodian family, fleeing the rival factions of the 80's while hoping to gather resources to return to farming in their homeland. Narrator Dara, 12, and the remnants of her family have arrived at a refugee camp soon after her father's summary execution. At first, the camp is a haven: food is plentiful, seed rice is available, and they form a bond with another family- -brother Sarun falls in love with Nea, and Dara makes friends with Nea's cousin, Jantu, who contrives marvelous toys from mud and bits of scrap; made wise by adversity, Jantu understands that the process of creation outweighs the value of things, and that dead loved ones may live on in memory. The respite is brief: Vietnamese bombing disrupts the camp, and the family is temporarily but terrifyingly separated. Later, Jantu is wounded by friendly fire and doesn't survive; but her tragic death empowers Dara to confront Sarun, who's caught up in mindless militarism instigated by a charismatic leader, and persuade him to travel home with the others—to plant rice and build a family instead of waging war. Again, Ho (Rice Without Rain, 1990) skillfully shapes her story to dramatize political and humanitarian issues. The easily swayed Sarun lacks dimension, but the girls are more subtly drawn—Dara's growing courage and assertiveness are especially convincing and admirable. Touching, authentic, carefully wrought- -and with an unusually appealing jacket. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-374-31340-7
Page Count: 163
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1991
After witnessing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, Daniel is suddenly transported, at age 14, from his comfortable life in Frankfurt to a Polish ghetto, then to Auschwitz and Buchenwald—losing most of his family along the way, seeing Nazi brutality of both the casual and the calculated kind, and recording atrocities with a smuggled camera (``What has happened to me?...Who am I? Where am I going?''). Matas, explicating an exhibit of photos and other materials at the new United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, creates a convincing composite youth and experience—fictional but carefully based on survivors' accounts. It's a savage story with no attempt to soften the culpability of the German people; Daniel's profound anger is easier to understand than is his father's compassion or his sister's plea to ``chose love. Always choose love.'' Daniel survives to be reunited, after the war, with his wife-to-be, but his dying friend's last word echoes beyond the happy ending: ``Remember...'' An unusual undertaking, effectively carried out. Chronology; glossary. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-590-46920-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
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