Publishers Weekly : Starred Review. Hernandez (A House Waiting for Music), an award-winning poet, turns for the first time to fiction with a beautifully executed, frequently brutal coming-of-age story. Marcus, the narrator, stakes out his position from the opening sentence: At the funeral for Oliver's father I daydreamed about killing my own. The 17-year-old is keenly aware of his losses, beginning with the index finger that got severed during a Rollerblading accident and including the departure of his father, who walked out after Marcus finally stopped him from beating up his younger brother, depressive Enrique. He is equally aware of the space these losses create for rage. This is not an easy or comfortable novel to read: Marcus gets wasted frequently, Enrique turns increasingly cruel and few of the characters have viable options. Their suffering is palpable; as Marcus says of his home, Our dad's rage followed us after he left. It trailed behind our footsteps from room to room, invisible. When Marcus and Enrique's mother informs them that she is thinking about letting their father move back in, she galvanizes their anger, and the plan they hatch resolves in an unforeseeably violent, life-altering climax. The author's imagery, sometimes subtle, sometimes searing, invariably hits its mark. Ages 14-up. (Jan.)

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School Library Journal : Gr 9 Up—Suckerpunch is as powerful as its title implies. Marcus is quiet and artistic; his younger brother, Enrique, is a charismatic ladies' man. Both boys have been scarred by their father's constant physical abuse directed at Enrique and witnessed silently by guilt-ridden Marcus. The man left a year earlier, but the boys are far from healed. Enrique turns to fighting and dating and dumping girl after girl, while Marcus gets stoned. Then they get the news that their father may be returning home, and it sends both siblings, along with Enrique's girlfriend, Ashley, and Marcus's friend Oliver on a road trip that will change their lives forever. Using dark, descriptive text and explicit dialogue, Hernandez paints a very realistic portrait of the aftereffects of abuse. Not only does he create memorable and sympathetic characters in Enrique and Marcus, but he also brings life to Oliver, who is dealing with paternal demons of his own, and headstrong but caring Ashley. In the end he does not tie everything up neatly, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions. Older teens looking for gritty urban drama are sure to embrace this gripping, well-written story.—Shari Fesko, Southfield Public Library, MI

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Publishers Weekly: Starred Review. In his first outing as author as well as illustrator, Nelson (Ellington Was Not a Street) delivers a history of the Negro Leagues in a sumptuous volume that no baseball fan should be without. Using a folksy vernacular, a fictional player gives an insider account of segregated baseball, explaining the aggressive style of play (Those fellows would bunt and run you to death. Drove pitchers crazy!) and recalling favorite players. Of Satchel Paige, he says, Even his slow stuff was fast. As illuminating as the text is, Nelson's muscular paintings serve as the true draw. His larger-than-life players have oversized hands, elongated bodies and near-impossible athleticism. Their lined faces suggest the seriousness with which they took their sport and the circumstances under which they were made to play it. A gatefold depicting the first Colored World Series is particularly exquisite—a replica ticket opens from the gutter to reveal the entire line-ups of both teams. And while this large, square book (just a shade smaller than a regulation-size base) succeeds as coffee-table art, it soars as a tribute to the individuals, like the legendary Josh Gibson, who was ultimately elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame without ever playing in the major leagues. As Nelson's narrator says, We had many Josh Gibsons in the Negro Leagues.... But you never heard about them. It's a shame the world didn't get to see them play. Ages 8-up. (Jan.)

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School Library Journal: Starred Review. Gr 3 Up—In this attractive, oversized book, Nelson offers an appreciative tribute to the Negro Leagues. Adopting the perspective and voice of an elderly ballplayer, he offers a readable account that is infused with an air of nostalgic oral history: "Seems like we've been playing baseball for a mighty long time. At least as long as we've been free." With African Americans banned from playing in the major leagues, Rube Foster organized the Negro Leagues in 1920 and grandly proclaimed: "We are the ship; all else the sea." From 1920 through the 1940s, they offered African Americans an opportunity to play ball and earn a decent living when opportunities to do so were scarce. Nine chapters offer an overview of the founding and history of the leagues, the players, style of play, and the league's eventual demise after Jackie Robinson broke major league baseball's color barrier in 1947. Nelson's brilliant, almost iconic paintings vividly complement his account. Starting with the impressive cover painting of a proud, determined Josh Gibson, the artist brings to light the character and inherent dignity of his subjects. Hank Aaron, who started his Hall of Fame career in the Negro Leagues, contributes a heartfelt foreword. This work expands on the excellent overview offered in Carole Boston Weatherford's A Negro League Scrapbook (Boyds Mills, 2005). It is an engaging tribute that should resonate with a wide audience and delight baseball fans of all ages.—Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA

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BookList: PreS-Gr. 2. Two well-known names come together in a book that speaks to the real lives of children and their experiences. The young narrator visits her grandparents, Nanna and Poppy, in their big house. They explore Nanna's garden, and Poppy plays his harmonica. The narrator rides her bike and takes a nap, “and nothing happens till I get up.” Looking out the picture window, the “hello, goodbye window,” she sees the pizza guy, and, more fancifully, a dinosaur. She also spots her parents coming to pick her up. The curly-haired girl is happy to see them, but sad because it means the end of the visit. The window imagery is less important than the title would make it seem. More intrinsic is Juster's honest portrayal of a child's perceptions (a striped cat in the yard is a tiger) and emotions (being happy and sad at the same time “just happens that way sometimes”). Raschka's swirling lines, swaths, and dabs of fruity colors seem especially vibrant, particularly in the double-page spreads, which have ample room to capture both the tender moments between members of the interracial family and the exuberance of spending time in the pulsating outdoors, all flowers, grass, and sky.
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School Library Journal: Gr 1-2-Simple sentences portray a dramatic event in 15-year-old Edison's life. He sells food on the railroad platform, and one day removes a toddler from the path of a rolling boxcar. The child's father, the station telegraph operator, says, "How can I ever repay you, Tom? I am not a rich man, but would one hundred dollars help?" Edison replies, "I do not want your money, sir-.But could you teach me to be a telegraph operator?" Tom continues, "I have read a lot about electricity-.I am sure electricity can run lots of things." Mr. Mackenzie's response foreshadows Tom's future, "Maybe even an electric light!" While the text is engaging and accessible for beginning readers, the presumed conversation and descriptions of events and feelings render the work historical fiction, not nonfiction, as the CIP indicates. Mr. Mackenzie's offer of one hundred dollars may capture children's attention but it will also mislead them, for in 1862 it was one-sixth of an average family's income. Many Edison biographers indicate that Mackenzie was not a wealthy man, making this offer a troubling departure from fact. DiVito's attractive pen-and-watercolor cartoons further the impression that this is not nonfiction.-Laura Scott, Farmington Community Library, MI

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School Library Journal: Gr 1-2-Simple sentences portray a dramatic event in 15-year-old Edison's life. He sells food on the railroad platform, and one day removes a toddler from the path of a rolling boxcar. The child's father, the station telegraph operator, says, "How can I ever repay you, Tom? I am not a rich man, but would one hundred dollars help?" Edison replies, "I do not want your money, sir-.But could you teach me to be a telegraph operator?" Tom continues, "I have read a lot about electricity-.I am sure electricity can run lots of things." Mr. Mackenzie's response foreshadows Tom's future, "Maybe even an electric light!" While the text is engaging and accessible for beginning readers, the presumed conversation and descriptions of events and feelings render the work historical fiction, not nonfiction, as the CIP indicates. Mr. Mackenzie's offer of one hundred dollars may capture children's attention but it will also mislead them, for in 1862 it was one-sixth of an average family's income. Many Edison biographers indicate that Mackenzie was not a wealthy man, making this offer a troubling departure from fact. DiVito's attractive pen-and-watercolor cartoons further the impression that this is not nonfiction.-Laura Scott, Farmington Community Library, MI

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School Library Journal: Gr 1-2-Simple sentences portray a dramatic event in 15-year-old Edison's life. He sells food on the railroad platform, and one day removes a toddler from the path of a rolling boxcar. The child's father, the station telegraph operator, says, "How can I ever repay you, Tom? I am not a rich man, but would one hundred dollars help?" Edison replies, "I do not want your money, sir-.But could you teach me to be a telegraph operator?" Tom continues, "I have read a lot about electricity-.I am sure electricity can run lots of things." Mr. Mackenzie's response foreshadows Tom's future, "Maybe even an electric light!" While the text is engaging and accessible for beginning readers, the presumed conversation and descriptions of events and feelings render the work historical fiction, not nonfiction, as the CIP indicates. Mr. Mackenzie's offer of one hundred dollars may capture children's attention but it will also mislead them, for in 1862 it was one-sixth of an average family's income. Many Edison biographers indicate that Mackenzie was not a wealthy man, making this offer a troubling departure from fact. DiVito's attractive pen-and-watercolor cartoons further the impression that this is not nonfiction.-Laura Scott, Farmington Community Library, MI

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School Library Journal: Gr 1-2-Simple sentences portray a dramatic event in 15-year-old Edison's life. He sells food on the railroad platform, and one day removes a toddler from the path of a rolling boxcar. The child's father, the station telegraph operator, says, "How can I ever repay you, Tom? I am not a rich man, but would one hundred dollars help?" Edison replies, "I do not want your money, sir-.But could you teach me to be a telegraph operator?" Tom continues, "I have read a lot about electricity-.I am sure electricity can run lots of things." Mr. Mackenzie's response foreshadows Tom's future, "Maybe even an electric light!" While the text is engaging and accessible for beginning readers, the presumed conversation and descriptions of events and feelings render the work historical fiction, not nonfiction, as the CIP indicates. Mr. Mackenzie's offer of one hundred dollars may capture children's attention but it will also mislead them, for in 1862 it was one-sixth of an average family's income. Many Edison biographers indicate that Mackenzie was not a wealthy man, making this offer a troubling departure from fact. DiVito's attractive pen-and-watercolor cartoons further the impression that this is not nonfiction.-Laura Scott, Farmington Community Library, MI

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Library Journal : A war between two rival civilizations over trading rights to the planet Arachna results in the virtual enslavement of the Qeng Ho by the victorious Emergent culture. As the Spider-folk of Arachna evolve in their customary cyclical pattern, unaware of the threat that lies in their near future, a few Qeng Ho rebels work desperately to free themselves and save Arachna from conquest. This prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep (Tor, 1992) demonstrates Vinge’s capacity for meticulously detailed culture-building and grand-scale sf drama. Recommended for most sf collections.

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Publishers Weekly : In this prequel to his Hugo Award-winning space opera, A Fire upon the Deep (1992), Vinge takes us to an era some thousands of years in our future, when humanity has just begun its exploration of intergalactic space and has as yet no inkling of the complex physics that rules the galaxy. Although human beings have settled on dozens of worlds and created societies ancient enough to have achieved greatness and collapse several times over, only the most limited traces have been found of alien cultures. Now, however, the Qeng Ho, a band of human interstellar traders, have discovered the Spiders, an alien race poised to enter its own space age. Unfortunately, the Qeng Ho must compete with another, less beneficent spacefaring human culture, the Emergents, who are bent on conquest rather than trade. The Spiders have just come out of a two-century-long suspended animation made necessary by the fluctuations of their erratic sun. Their culture is entering a period of explosive growth that could end in tragedy, due in part to a dangerous nuclear arms race and in part to the Emergents’ desire to enslave them. Vinge, a professor of mathematics and computer science (at San Diego State), is among the very best of the current crop of hard SF writers, producing work that is not only fast-paced and intellectually challenging, but also stylishly written and centered on carefully drawn characters. This long, action-packed novel should fully engage any SF reader’s sense of wonder, and likely will win the author his sixth Hugo nomination.

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School Library Journal : Gr 3–6—Haas has culled from his experiences as a wildlife photographer for National Geographic and selected various vignettes about encounters with leopards, elephants, wild dogs, lions, hyenas, hippos, rhinos, and cheetahs. There are moments of drama and tension, awe and sadness in the first-person narratives. The author makes it clear that predators need to eat animals to survive, and he is obviously aware of his young audience. Although a buffalo herd kills a lion cub, the chapter ends with the information that its two siblings have survived and are safely rejoined with their mother. The writing is strong enough to stand on its own, but the photos steal the show. Close-ups allow youngsters to see the shadows in the eyes of a lion, a string of saliva in the mouth of a hyena, and a single purple dragonfly resting over the eye of a crocodile. Whether they are blurred to emphasize an animal's speed or sharp enough to count the whiskers on a mother cheetah, each photo or montage is a narrative on its own. On nearly every spread, a sidebar gives information about the species, and an insert at the beginning of the book describes the photographer's typical workday, hour by hour. Haas refers to the animals as "critters," generally considered a regional or slang term for "creatures," which may be jarring to some readers at first but will quickly be forgotten as the stories unfold. Each of the seven chapters would work as a read-aloud for an individual or group. Together they paint a fascinating picture of the work of a wildlife photographer.—Ellen Heath, Easton Area Public Library, Easton, PA

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Library Journal : Diego Rivera's mural in Mexico's Palacio Nationale was only half complete the day young Harrison Shepherd stood transfixed before it, but he would be forever captive to the extraordinary power of the imagination. A solitary child, a devourer of books, left to his own devices by a mother chasing unattainable men and a father pencil pushing for the government back in the States, Harrison observes and he writes. When a quirk of fate lands him in the home of Communist sympathizers Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Rivera's wife, Harrison becomes enmeshed in the turbulent history that will inform his life and work. Through the distinctive voices of Harrison and his insightful amanuensis, Violet Brown, Kingsolver paints a verbal panorama spanning three decades and two countries. World War I veterans protesting for benefits denied, the unleashing of the atomic bomb, the McCarthy hearings, censorship of the arts, and abuse by the press corps lend credence to the sentiment that the more things change, the more they remain the same. VERDICT As in The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver perfects the use of multiple points of view, even reprinting actual newspaper articles to blur the line between fact and fiction. This is her most ambitious, timely, and powerful novel yet. Well worth the wait.—Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Myers, FL

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Publishers Weekly : Starred Review. Kingsolver's ambitious new novel, her first in nine years (after the The Poisonwood Bible), focuses on Harrison William Shepherd, the product of a divorced American father and a Mexican mother. After getting kicked out of his American military academy, Harrison spends his formative years in Mexico in the 1930s in the household of Diego Rivera; his wife, Frida Kahlo; and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky, who is hiding from Soviet assassins. After Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison returns to the U.S., settling down in Asheville, N.C., where he becomes an author of historical potboilers (e.g., Vassals of Majesty) and is later investigated as a possible subversive. Narrated in the form of letters, diary entries and newspaper clippings, the novel takes a while to get going, but once it does, it achieves a rare dramatic power that reaches its emotional peak when Harrison wittily and eloquently defends himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee (on the panel is a young Dick Nixon). Employed by the American imagination, is how one character describes Harrison, a term that could apply equally to Kingsolver as she masterfully resurrects a dark period in American history with the assured hand of a true literary artist. (Nov.)

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Library Journal: Thirty years ago, Joey Becker's carefree bohemian life was shattered by the brutal, unsolved murder of her best friend, Dana. Joey coped with her loss while building a career, marrying, and raising a family. She thinks she is happy, but ever since her children have left home Joey has felt a vague sense of disappointment. She cannot share the depth of her feelings for Dana with anyone, even her husband. Then Eli, Joey and Dana's former housemate, arrives in town. Joey and Eli are first drawn to each other because they both loved Dana and still mourn her, but their mutual attraction grows until it threatens Joey's marriage and her relationship with her daughter. Miller (The Good Mother, LJ 5/15/86) presents a suspenseful, penetrating look at the tenuous bonds of love, the ease with which even a good marriage can be destroyed, and the need to forgive ourselves for the mistakes of the past. Highly recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/98.]--Karen Anderson, Superior Court Law Lib., Phoenix

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Publishers Weekly: The shadowy and inexorable nemesis of past secrets to a reclaimed life, and the inability even of those who are intimates to really know one another, are poignant themes in Miller's resonant fifth novel. Narrator Jo Becker, now a veterinarian married to a minister in a small Massachusetts town, was once a runaway bride who assumed a false name and lived with other dissaffected '60s bohemians in a group house in Cambridge. Her special friend in the house was sweet-spirited and generous Dana Jablonski, whose shocking--and unsolved--murder broke up the group and left Jo with unresolved questions about her own identity. She manages to ignore the memories of that time until, almost three decades later, one of the former housemates, Eli Mayhew, moves to her town. Eli, now a distinguished research scientist, provides a revelation that acts as the catalyst provoking Jo to face her guilt about her past behavior--and to act impulsively once again. Her moral conundrum occasions a heartrending change in her heretofore strong marriage and undermines her relationship with her three grown daughters. As usual, Miller (The Good Mother; Family Pictures) renders the details of quotidian domesticity with bedrock veracity and a sensitivity to minute calibrations of family dynamics, especially the nuances of sibling rivalry. But while the pacing, tone and measured exposition are handled with masterly skill, the way in which Jo's decision to make amends for her past rebounds on her present life seems staged and convoluted, since her husband and children seem to think that retribution for a murder should take second place to their own emotional needs. That cavil aside, Miller's narrative is a beautifully textured picture of the psychological tug of war between finding integrity as an individual and satisfying the demands of spouse, children and community. 150,000 first printing; Random House audio; BOMC selection; author tour.

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Library Journal : Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the life, career, achievements, and trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the "father" of the atomic bomb. In 2004, there were two new biographies by significant science writers—Jeremy Bernstein's Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma and David C. Cassidy's J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century. In addition to this current title, another is scheduled for publication in 2005, Abraham Pais and Robert Crease's Shatterer of Worlds: A Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer. This collaboration between writer Bird and English professor Sherwin is an expansive but fast-paced and engrossing work that draws its strength from the insights provided into Oppenheimer's thoughts and motives and the many anecdotes. The book's five parts cover his youth and education, his early career and dalliance with communism, the Manhattan Project, his return to academe and growing political influence, and, finally, his dealings with the FBI and eventual retreat from public life. The emphasis throughout is on Oppenheimer's personality and how he navigated the sociopolitical minefields of the era, with relatively less discussion of his scientific work. For a readable and well-researched biography of the man, this suffices quite well. However, with so many other biographies available, not to mention histories of the Manhattan Project, it provides little new information here. For general readers in larger public and academic libraries.—Gregg Sapp, Science Lib., SUNY at Albany

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Publishers Weekly : Starred Review. Though many recognize Oppenheimer (1904–1967) as the father of the atomic bomb, few are as familiar with his career before and after Los Alamos. Sherwin (A World Destroyed) has spent 25 years researching every facet of Oppenheimer's life, from his childhood on Manhattan's Upper West Side and his prewar years as a Berkeley physicist to his public humiliation when he was branded a security risk at the height of anticommunist hysteria in 1954. Teaming up with Bird, an acclaimed Cold War historian (The Color of Truth), Sherwin examines the evidence surrounding Oppenheimer's "hazy and vague" connections to the Communist Party in the 1930s—loose interactions consistent with the activities of contemporary progressives. But those politics, in combination with Oppenheimer's abrasive personality, were enough for conservatives, from fellow scientist Edward Teller to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, to work at destroying Oppenheimer's postwar reputation and prevent him from swaying public opinion against the development of a hydrogen bomb. Bird and Sherwin identify Atomic Energy Commission head Lewis Strauss as the ringleader of a "conspiracy" that culminated in a security clearance hearing designed as a "show trial." Strauss's tactics included illegal wiretaps of Oppenheimer's attorney; those transcripts and other government documents are invaluable in debunking the charges against Oppenheimer. The political drama is enhanced by the close attention to Oppenheimer's personal life, and Bird and Sherwin do not conceal their occasional frustration with his arrogant stonewalling and panicky blunders, even as they shed light on the psychological roots for those failures, restoring human complexity to a man who had been both elevated and demonized. 32 pages of photos not seen by PW. (Apr. 10)

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