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jamiehandy's review
2.0
I picked this book up at a used book sale and grabbed it because it had the newberry medal winner seal stuck on it. As I held the book the seal started to unstick and roll. I was having a hard time liking the book and started wondering if it had really won the Newberry medal or if someone had haphazardly stuck the sticker on this book by accident. I read another 20 pages and then had to go look online to see if it was really a winner.
It is.
So, with affirmation that others had in fact liked this book enough to grant it an award, I kept reading. I figured it had to get better, right?
Well, now I am done with it. I thought it was OK. not great. not terrible. The story has multiple characters and changes points of view often. You are stuck in the heads of 14 year olds. I AM SO GLAD I AM NOT 14 ANYMORE. I really can remember thinking like them-- trying to glean as much meaning out of nothing. feeling predestined for something great, but not knowing what. and knowing there were experiences to live that would change your path forever but not really knowing where to go to live them.
I don't know who I would reccomend it to -- there were some funny moments and I liked the coordination of a few key illustrations, photos, and writing styles.
It is.
So, with affirmation that others had in fact liked this book enough to grant it an award, I kept reading. I figured it had to get better, right?
Well, now I am done with it. I thought it was OK. not great. not terrible. The story has multiple characters and changes points of view often. You are stuck in the heads of 14 year olds. I AM SO GLAD I AM NOT 14 ANYMORE. I really can remember thinking like them-- trying to glean as much meaning out of nothing. feeling predestined for something great, but not knowing what. and knowing there were experiences to live that would change your path forever but not really knowing where to go to live them.
I don't know who I would reccomend it to -- there were some funny moments and I liked the coordination of a few key illustrations, photos, and writing styles.
megangraff's review
3.0
I read this book to see if I could figure out if it should stay in the elementary library or be moved to the middle school collection. (I spoke to a grade 5 student who is an avid when I started it and she is going to try reading it next.)
I am not really sure which students I would recommend it to.
I am not really sure which students I would recommend it to.
jackiehorne's review
4.0
A book without much plot, but with beautiful writing and convincingly drawn characters. Set in what appears to be the 70's, Perkins tells the criss-crossing stories of a group of friends on the cusp of adolescence. Constantly shifting point of view between characters suddenly awkward as they consider the possibilities before them, and the selves they might become, Perkins focuses not on the life-changing moments, but on the small events when a piece of oneself comes into greater focus. This won't be a hugely popular Newbery winner, but will be appreciated by the quiet, thoughtful reader drawn to psychologically realistic character studies.
My favorite passage: "So often in books, or in movies, one character looks at another character and understands in a precise way what that person is feeling. So often in real life, one person wants to be understood, but obscures her feelings with completely unrelated words and facial expressions, while the other person is trying to remember whether she did or didn't turn off the burner under the hard-boiled eggs" (280-81). Perkins' narrative doesn't give in to the typical book/movie conventions; instead, if offers readers the comfort of knowing that mistakes will be made, opportunities will be missed, but "It was okay. They can't hear me, but I want to tell them it's okay, they're doing just fine" (337).
My favorite passage: "So often in books, or in movies, one character looks at another character and understands in a precise way what that person is feeling. So often in real life, one person wants to be understood, but obscures her feelings with completely unrelated words and facial expressions, while the other person is trying to remember whether she did or didn't turn off the burner under the hard-boiled eggs" (280-81). Perkins' narrative doesn't give in to the typical book/movie conventions; instead, if offers readers the comfort of knowing that mistakes will be made, opportunities will be missed, but "It was okay. They can't hear me, but I want to tell them it's okay, they're doing just fine" (337).
kitsuneheart's review
2.0
Having a hard time seeing why this book wound up so popular. Perhaps if I had read the book which came before, "All Alone in the Universe," it would have stuck more, but on its own, I couldn't care.
It's a series of little incidents in the lives of some suburban kids. They go on drives, handle family crises, and develop a few small romances. The bits are tied together by the movements of a necklace, which finally finds its way home in the end. Perhaps the author was trying to make a statement about fate? Or about the randomness of the universe? I really could not tell.
This has this definite 1980s fiction feel. Kids running around on their own, no computers or cell phones, a sort of nostalgia for old times. Unfortunately, it also reminds me of the quality of a lot of 1980s young adult literature. I feel like Perkins has mostly forgotten her childhood and is failing hard at her attempts to imagine what it's like to be a teenager.
It's a series of little incidents in the lives of some suburban kids. They go on drives, handle family crises, and develop a few small romances. The bits are tied together by the movements of a necklace, which finally finds its way home in the end. Perhaps the author was trying to make a statement about fate? Or about the randomness of the universe? I really could not tell.
This has this definite 1980s fiction feel. Kids running around on their own, no computers or cell phones, a sort of nostalgia for old times. Unfortunately, it also reminds me of the quality of a lot of 1980s young adult literature. I feel like Perkins has mostly forgotten her childhood and is failing hard at her attempts to imagine what it's like to be a teenager.
mschrock8's review
3.0
I enjoyed the illustrations in this sweet book about love and change and giving people a chance. I wasn't entirely sure how all the characters fit together.
Another Newbery winner borrowed from Hamilton Library at Franklin College.
Another Newbery winner borrowed from Hamilton Library at Franklin College.
lannthacker's review
3.0
J PERKINS - coming of age, realistic
Oddball coming of age in the suburbs among childhood friends drifting apart. Vignettes. 12+
Oddball coming of age in the suburbs among childhood friends drifting apart. Vignettes. 12+
meghan111's review
3.0
This book says: Remember back when nothing ever happened? And it was summer, and the kids on your block would somehow get together after dinner and do something, like sit in a parked car listening to a radio? And somehow everyone was changing and becoming open to more, wider possibilities? I enjoyed the little illustrations and silly asides of dialogue. Sometimes this captured the feeling of some of Lynda Barry's work, like Down the Street or Come Over, Come Over. Kind of a rambling, strange choice for the Newbery, though.
carint's review
5.0
Nothing really happened but it was reminiscent of growing up in the 1960 and early 1970s. Just normal kids doing normal things. Loved it!
brandypainter's review
3.0
Originally posted at Random Musings of a Bibliophile.
Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins is a Newbery winner of the past decade that for whatever reason I hadn't read yet. I thought it was about time to change that. I can see why the committee liked it.
Synopsis (from author's website):
The people in this book are fourteen years old, and there is romance, but it’s mostly the kind of romance where one person looks at another person and that person looks at the first person, but their looks miss each other, maybe only by a second, and they don’t connect. There is a a scene in the Hitchcock movie Strangers on a Train where the wacko guy does this with his hands and says, “Criss Cross.” He’s talking about something else (murder) but I’m talking about those just-missed opportunities to connect. This might sound discouraging, but I think it’s actually encouraging to know that we came pretty close, and if we keep trying, we’ll get it right.
In the beginning I really thought I was going to love this book. It has the sort of language I revel in. And revel in it I did. I appreciate how this book was written.
He looked at the musician again who didn't seem so ordinary anymore. His music had transformed him, or revealed a part of him that was plugged into the cosmic life force. A life force that seeped in, through, and under the music, like God in the Communion wafer. An everyday kind of life force, though, that could do this in a song about a chicken. More about earth than heaven. Also girls really liked it.
She knew that she would have to talk. She should have been able to do it. But she had developed a black hole in her brain. She could be in the middle of a normal conversation with a boy and the instant she thought of him that way-as a boy-the black hole sucked all her words away. Except a few stupid ones. The stupid ones stayed in there.
There was a lot to love about the language, but in the end the book was simply to episodic for me to connect with any of the characters. It is a book about connection or the lack thereof. About almost but not quite connecting with another person. So this may have been the author's intention. It kept me too distant to really care though. It turned out to be a good thing as if I had cared I would have been over the top infuriated by the end. As it was I was too detached to really care.
Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins is a Newbery winner of the past decade that for whatever reason I hadn't read yet. I thought it was about time to change that. I can see why the committee liked it.
Synopsis (from author's website):
The people in this book are fourteen years old, and there is romance, but it’s mostly the kind of romance where one person looks at another person and that person looks at the first person, but their looks miss each other, maybe only by a second, and they don’t connect. There is a a scene in the Hitchcock movie Strangers on a Train where the wacko guy does this with his hands and says, “Criss Cross.” He’s talking about something else (murder) but I’m talking about those just-missed opportunities to connect. This might sound discouraging, but I think it’s actually encouraging to know that we came pretty close, and if we keep trying, we’ll get it right.
In the beginning I really thought I was going to love this book. It has the sort of language I revel in. And revel in it I did. I appreciate how this book was written.
He looked at the musician again who didn't seem so ordinary anymore. His music had transformed him, or revealed a part of him that was plugged into the cosmic life force. A life force that seeped in, through, and under the music, like God in the Communion wafer. An everyday kind of life force, though, that could do this in a song about a chicken. More about earth than heaven. Also girls really liked it.
She knew that she would have to talk. She should have been able to do it. But she had developed a black hole in her brain. She could be in the middle of a normal conversation with a boy and the instant she thought of him that way-as a boy-the black hole sucked all her words away. Except a few stupid ones. The stupid ones stayed in there.
There was a lot to love about the language, but in the end the book was simply to episodic for me to connect with any of the characters. It is a book about connection or the lack thereof. About almost but not quite connecting with another person. So this may have been the author's intention. It kept me too distant to really care though. It turned out to be a good thing as if I had cared I would have been over the top infuriated by the end. As it was I was too detached to really care.