IKE’S INCREDIBLE INK
focusing instead on the conflict between Nora and Christian. Readers will spot the romance potential immediately, but the story stretches out that prospect for as long as possible. Contestants may lose, but readers won’t. (recipes) (Fiction. 12 & up)
Farley, Brianne Illus. by Farley, Brianne Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | Aug. 6, 2013 978-0-7636-6296-7
The long and winding—and funny and diverting—road to creative endeavor. Ike wants to write an incredible story, but first he needs… what does he need? “Maybe he needed to find his favorite pen. And have a long chat with his best friend. And a bit of cleaning was also in order.” Also, clearly, he needs to make his own ink! Shadows are “shifty and mysterious” like ink, so Ike nabs a shadow and safeguards it in a bag. The dark side of the moon is black like ink, so Ike matter-of-factly builds a spaceship to go fetch some. “It’s hard to say what Ike found on the dark side of the moon, because he didn’t bring a flashlight. But whatever he found went in that big bag.” Ingredients procured, he bludgeons, steams and mashes them together using flasks and beakers, a mallet and his own feet. Ike’s a quirky character with spindly limbs and a torso shaped—and sometimes spattering—like an ink blot. In digital collage and, natch, ink, Farley balances textured backgrounds and black splashes (the blender scene is spectacular) with a minimalism that emphasizes Ike’s singular project. Whether he needed the ink for itself or needed its creation as story fodder, Ike’s finally ready to sit down and write. A realistically comical look at artistic process disguised as merry procrastination. (Picture book. 4-8)
TASTE TEST
Fiore, Kelly Walker (336 pp.) $17.99 | Aug. 20, 2013 978-0-8027-2838-8 This debut about a reality show for young chefs has enough spice to keep readers feasting all the way through. Nora has been cooking all her life; her dad runs a barbecue restaurant that’s legendary in their part of North Carolina. She loves the reality TV show Taste Test, in which teens vie for a $50,000 scholarship to a famous Paris cooking school, and she enters it as a contestant. As soon as she arrives, sparks fly. Handsome Christian is the privileged son of a famous chef, and his friend Joy hobnobs with celebrities. They treat Nora as a redneck. Nora and Christian turn out to be the major talents among the contestants, but the tension that generates convinces many that they’re hiding a romance. As the contest progresses, someone appears to be sabotaging the show. Amid all the turmoil, can, Nora concentrate on winning, and does she really have a chance? Fiore creates some likable, enjoyable characters, especially in Nora and Christian, and keeps the narrative zooming along with all the urgency of a real reality show. She spends only a few chapters on the actual cooking challenges, |
JUMPED IN
Flores-Scott, Patrick Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt (304 pp.) $16.99 | Aug. 27, 2013 978-0-8050-9514-2
A slacker learns life lessons from a slam-poet classmate in an inspiring if overly optimistic school story. Grunge-rock devotee Sam has been trying to avoid the attention of teachers and other students ever since his mom left town two years earlier. Then the equally quiet Luis Cárdenas arrives in Sam’s English class, and meddlesome Ms. Cassidy seats the two of them together. Rumors fly about Luis: His brother is an infamous gangster, and there is a mean-looking scar on Luis’ neck. Sam doesn’t see Luis’ true colors until Ms. Cassidy announces that the class will have a poetry slam. Luis not only throws himself into creating a poem, he inspires Sam to do the same. The boys’ sudden, unmitigated enthusiasm for a school project may be hard to swallow, but there is something infectiously hopeful in Luis’ devotion to poetry, as well as in the inspiration Sam takes from old footage of Kurt Cobain. When Luis disappears after a gang fight, Sam, once a loner, teams up with classmates, teachers, neighbors and old friends to find out what has happened. Short, punchy sentences, paragraphs and chapters give the novel’s prose a sense of motion, and Luis’ poems, interspersed with the narrative, give readers added insight into Luis’ character. Unabashedly didactic, but moving nonetheless. (Fiction. 12-16)
SPECIAL DEAD
Freivald, Patrick JournalStone (260 pp.) $15.95 paper | Jul. 12, 2013 978-1-936564-80-4 Just because Ani is a zombie doesn’t mean she’s not entitled to a free and appropriate education, right? A little over a year after the Prompocalypse that left 26 dead and 10—eight students and two teacher chaperones— infected with the Chinese weaponized zombie virus that wiped out Los Angeles, the kids are going back to school. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Banerjee and Ani’s mom, Dr. Romero, they’ve been kept successfully undead, and as long as the courts are undecided as to their humanity, their old school has to educate
kirkus.com
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children ’s
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teen
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15 june 2013
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89