“Storyteller Tingle’s tale unfolds in Isaac’s conversational voice; readers ‘hear’ his story with comforting clarity and are plunged into the Choctaw belief system, so they can begin to understand it from the inside out.” from how i became a ghost
along with some other outlandish adventurers, to add ponderous romantic tension. Wren’s ogling of all the boys—“[t]he smooth breadth of their chests, the work of the muscles in the back, the dips and curves in the stomachs and hips”—is endless. She’s not even distracted by the nigh-feral attackers outside the dome: stinky, toothless and speaking in a laughable hillbilly dialect (in coastal Wales, these ruffians deliver such gems as “I’m ah-tellin-ya”). A jumble of characters and stereotypes does not constitute worldbuilding. Skip. (Steampunk. 14-16)
THE SAINTS
Thomas, Lex Egmont USA (416 pp.) $17.99 | $17.99 e-book | Jul. 10, 2013 978-1-60684-336-9 978-1-60684-337-6 e-book Series: Quarantine, 2 A slapdash continuation of the story of a high school in quarantine that started in The Loners (2012). The infected, gun-wielding kids who broke into McKinley High keep the door open long enough for most of the Loners clique to escape before outside adults re-seal it, restarting the familiar plot. Now Lucy and Will struggle at the bottom of the social heat, and a group of parents has taken over responsibility for the school, food drops and “graduation.” Besides the disbanding of the Loners, the other clique shake-up is Varsity’s ouster of dictatorial Sam. Vulnerable Will stumbles into a party thrown by the heretofore-ignored newly trapped kids, nicknamed Saints after their school mascot, and joins. Soon Will and the Saints’ unbalanced leader control the parents through extortion and throw wild parties featuring entrances on motorcycles and the riding of a live, wild hog (a transparent, clumsy link to Lord of the Flies); despite the flash, it’s a slowpaced, tensionless storyline. Meanwhile, Lucy joins the Sluts, who welcome her with sexual bullying during “Naked Week,” a hazing ritual introduced through writing on par with bad porn. This book never lets plausibility get in the way of objectification—one character plans a grandiose gentlemen’s club in the war-torn high school, and female sexuality is constantly bartered. Near the end, Thomas (Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies’ collective pen name) finally remembers the first novel’s only successful element: Gore. Implausible, poorly written trash that, most damningly, bores. (Science fiction. 16-18)
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DANNY BLACKGOAT, NAVAJO PRISONER
Tingle, Tim 7th Generation (160 pp.) $9.95 paper | Jun. 1, 2013 978-1-939053-03-9 Series: PathFinders
The 1863 forced displacement of thousands of Navajo known as the Long Walk serves as milieu for this tale of a teenage survivor. Ripped abruptly by U.S. troops from his peaceful life in Canyon de Chelly, Danny endures verbal abuse, severe physical hardship, brutal beatings and even murder attempts on the trail with his Navajo neighbors. This continues after as well, at a Texas labor camp for Confederate Army prisoners. He never loses his spirit though and, with help from sympathetic whites, manages to escape at last—by sharing a coffin for a night and a day with a corpse. The nearly all-English dialogue makes it seem as if Danny understands more of what’s going on than he should, since he doesn’t speak that language. Nevertheless, Tingle, a Choctaw storyteller, spins a good yarn and, along with other respectful references to Navajo culture, ingeniously leverages its particular aversion to mention of or contact with the dead to magnify the terror of Danny’s climactic challenge. Not an angry indictment, despite plenty of explicit brutality and prejudice, but a positive tribute to the fortitude of Danny and his Navajo community. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 10-13)
HOW I BECAME A GHOST
Tingle, Tim The RoadRunner Press (160 pp.) $18.95 | Jun. 18, 2013 978-1-937054-53-3 Series: How I Became a Ghost, 1 A 10-year-old Choctaw boy recounts the beginnings of the forced resettlement of his people from their Mississippi-area homelands in 1830. He begins his story with a compelling hook: “Maybe you have never read a book written by a ghost before. I am a ghost. I am not a ghost when this book begins, so you have to pay very close attention.” Readers meet Isaac, his family and their dog, Jumper, on the day that Treaty Talk changes everything. Even as the Choctaw prepare to leave their homes, Isaac begins to have unsettling visions: Some elders are engulfed in flames, and others are covered in oozing pustules. As Isaac and his family set out on the Choctaw Trail of Tears, these visions begin to come true, as some are burned to death by the Nahullos and others perish due to smallpox-infested blankets distributed on the trail. But the Choctaw barrier between life and death is a fluid one, and ghosts follow Isaac, providing reassurance and advice
kirkus.com
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children ’s
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teen
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15 june 2013
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119