The Season of Styx Malone
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نقد و بررسی
Starred review from September 17, 2018
This memorable novel about three African-American boys in small-town Indiana opens with a trade: Bobby Gene and his little brother, Caleb, swap their baby sister for a sack of fireworks. Though the child is returned immediately, the brothers (ages 11 and 10) get to keep the fireworks. But what to do with them? Enter Styx Malone, a charismatic teen (who’s “sliding through the world like the air around him was greased”), who tells the siblings, “You just gotta learn how to make people give you things.” Styx convinces them that the trio can make a profit on the fireworks and, through a creatively convoluted trade-up sequence (involving old car parts, a lawn mower, and some Harley-Davidson memorabilia), could end up owning a snazzy moped. Beneath the entertaining shenanigans runs an affecting emotional current: Styx has ricocheted from one foster home to another and aches for a loving home; narrator Caleb grapples with the fear that he is “ordinary” and feels smothered by his overprotective father. Interweaving themes of risk taking and trust, betrayal and forgiveness, Magoon (How It Went Down) crafts a novel that is genuinely funny, heartbreaking, and uplifting—extraordinary, in fact. Ages 8–12. Agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown Ltd.
Moving with ease among a memorable cast of characters, Sullivan Jones narrates a coming-of-age story that wrestles with friendship, belonging, and what it actually means to be ordinary. After a lopsided, ill-advised trade (a baby sister for a bag of fireworks?!) lands Caleb and Bobby Gene in hot water with their parents, their summer is looking like one long slog. Enter Styx Malone, the smooth-talking older boy from across the way, who is anything but ordinary and knows a thing or two about making trades. The story unfolds through Caleb's eyes, and Jones dials into his energy and growing defiance as he struggles against his family's expectations. For the adult characters hovering outside the boys' world, Jones switches to deeper tones, creating authentic exchanges. A.S. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
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