Review by New York Times Review
CALYPSO, by David Sedaris. (Little, Brown, $28.) In his new collection of comic personal essays, Sedaris - who is now 61 - grapples seriously with themes of family, mortality and illness. As always, his very essence seeps through the pages like an intoxicating cloud. ALL FOR NOTHING, by Walter Kempowski. Translated by Anthea Bell. (New York Review Books, paper, $16.95.) Until recently, the plight of the nearly 750,000 Germans who fled East Prussia in the last days of World War II remained a taboo subject in fiction. Kempowski's novel, a work of lyrical melancholy originally published in German in 2006, conjures a privileged East Prussian family who must decide whether to join the exodus. INSANE: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness, by Alissá Roth. (Basic Books, $28.) Roth offers a searing examination of how prisons have become the dumping ground for the mentally ill, where they are subjected to inhumane mistreatment. PROPERTY, by Lionel Shriver. (Harper/HarperCollins, $26.99.) A collection of short fiction that becomes a wry catalog of the many ways an acquisitive urge can go astray. Renters become unhappy owners; a wedding gift prompts a battle among friends; a man and his father feud over ?160 and the price of an airmail stamp. THE ELECTRIC WOMAN: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, by Tessa Fontaine. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) Fontaine's assured debut recounts her training as a carnival performer, eating fire and handling boa constrictors, even as it traces her difficult relationship with her mother - sometimes its own sideshow act. WAR ON PEACE: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, by Ronan Farrow. (Norton, $27.95.) At a time when the Trump administration is gutting the State Department and filling foreign policy jobs with military officers, Farrow offers a lament for the plight of America's diplomats, and explains why it matters. COUNTRY DARK, by Chris Offutt. (Grove, $24.) This family saga, featuring a Korean War veteran and his wife in the world of Kentucky moonshiners, is as dark as the title implies - violence and bad luck abound - but also so deeply humane that winsome twinkles shine through the blackness. YOU GO FIRST, by Erin Entrada Kelly. (Greenwillow, $16.99; ages 8 to 12.) A novel by the 2017 Newbery medalist follows two struggling kids who meet playing Scrabble online and convert their virtual bond into a real-life friendship. ENDLING THE LAST, by Katherine Applegate. (Harper, $17.99; ages 8 to 12.) Applegate starts a new series, about the last member of a dog-human hybrid species, mixing lovely prose and fast-paced fantasy to explore extinction and destructive human appetites. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 3, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
It's a bold step when 11-year-old Ben, reeling from the news that his parents plan to divorce, asks 12-year-old Charlotte if they can talk on the phone sometimes. Friendly rivals in an online Scrabble game for several months, they've never met and don't realize what they have in common: each is intellectually gifted, lonely, and suddenly coping with troubles (Ben's parents' divorce and his ill-fated run for student council; Charlotte's father's heart attack, as well as rejection by her best friend). The story's momentum never falters as, chapter by chapter, the disarming third-person text shuttles between Charlotte's story, set in Pennsylvania, and Ben's in Louisiana. Those phone conversations? Though realistically awkward and anything but candid, they still provide a lifeline for two vulnerable kids feeling suddenly adrift and alone. Each story develops independently over six days, but the link between the two main characters becomes a subtle bond that enables each one to make it through an emotionally challenging week and come out stronger. Readers drawn by the intriguing jacket art will enjoy the novel's perceptive dual narrative.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Newbery Medalist Kelly¿s (Hello, Universe) new novel, a long-distance online friendship provides a lifeline for two brainy, lonely kids facing turbulent events. Tautly plotted, the narrative alternates points of view between 12-year-old Charlotte in the Philadelphia suburbs and 11-year-old Ben in Louisiana, who share a love of words and play a running game of online Scrabble. During one tumultuous week each faces grave challenges: Charlotte can¿t face her father¿s heart attack and struggles as her former best friend shifts into a more popular clique, and loner Ben denies the impact of his parents¿ divorce and plunges himself into an out-of-character student council election. Kelly balances the humiliations of middle school¿the desperation over where to sit at lunch, bullying, and social jockeying¿with real kindness; each protagonist believably becomes more honest and forms new connections. Ultimately, Kelly crafts an incisive portrait of friendship and resilience. Ages 8¿12. Agent: Sara Crowe, Pippin Properties. (Apr.)
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Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-An online Scrabble game is more than a pastime, it's a lifeline for middle schoolers Charlotte and Ben: both children are coping with heartache. Charlotte's father is in the hospital, and her best friend is drifting toward a new social circle where Charlotte isn't welcome. Struggling to fit in at a new school, Ben's parents announce their divorce. The children's game postings evolve into a friendship by phone-they live in different states-that reassures them they aren't alone. Kelly (Hello, Universe) knows her audience well and uses Ben and Charlotte's alternating points of view to capture moments of tween anguish with searing honesty. Foreshadowing facts lead each of Charlotte's chapters and information about sea stars is perfectly incorporated in a powerful scene about bullying. Kelly takes the concerns of young readers' seriously while reassuring them that, with time and resilience, they will eventually be okay. Ben and Charlotte's gradual understanding of the changing forces that affect their lives is reinforced through gentle pacing and careful plotting: a Robert Frost quote is strategically placed so that when revealed in its entirety, both the protagonists-and readers-are ready to understand it. VERDICT Heartfelt and hopeful, this novel will encourage young readers to offer their hand in friendship to kids who, just like them, might be struggling.--Marybeth Kozikowski, Sachem Public Library, Holbrook, NY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Two brainy middle-school outcasts--twelve-year-old Charlotte and eleven-year-old Ben--find companionship through a longstanding, long-distance online Scrabble rivalry while dealing with upheaval in their lives. Neither one confides in the other, but slowly they begin to communicate outside the game. With character-revealing prose, Kelly holds readers' attention as the narration moves back and forth between the fully realized protagonists and their intricately drawn home and school settings. (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Preteens Charlotte Lockard and Ben Boxer enjoy an ongoing online Scrabble feud, each vying for word-game domination, while they both silently struggle with middle school social catastrophes and crumbling family infrastructures. Suddenly, their intermittent Scrabble banter becomes an unexpected lifeline. Pennsylvanian Charlotte's rock collections, incessant anagramming, and deep-delving thought spirals charm readers instantly; Louisianan Ben's sputtering, encyclopedic knowledge of presidential history, Ravenclaw blanket, relentless recycling statistics, and stick-to-it optimism couldn't be sweeter. Guileless and earnest, these two kids seem poised for inevitable heartbreak. Charlotte can't face her lifelong best friend, who suddenly thinks she's a "parasite," or her father, who's recovering in the ICU after a heart attack. Ben can't understand his parents' marriage's "devolution" into a divorce or the ridicule his student council campaign incites. Catastrophe looms and builds through the book, the reckoning of a single week that culminates with a crucial convergence of the Scrabble friends' virtual world with their real one. Charlotte's and Ben's alternating first-person accounts of their humiliations and struggles induce a constricting tightness in readers' chests. Their unspoken feelings and worries (which appear in quavering italics) weigh heavily. Readers will undoubtedly see themselves in these pages. Charlotte and Ben are both depicted with pale skin and dark hair on the cover; their respective ethnicities go unmentioned, and their supporting cast is a diverse one.A well-crafted, entertaining call for middle schoolers to find their voices and remain accountable in shaping their own social spheres. (Fiction. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
