"Applegate has a quirky imagination and a deft touch. She has created believable nonhuman characters before, most memorably in “The One and Only Ivan,” her Newbery Medal-winning novel narrated by an artistic animal who spends 27 years in captivity in a shopping mall. (That book opens winningly with the lines, “Hello. I am Ivan. I am a gorilla. It’s not as easy as it looks.”) Red, for her part, has a sly wit, aware that a human might be hugging her one minute, and the next, sending her to become tongue depressors. "Living in a neighborhood that has seen Italian, Chinese, Spanish and Nigerian families come and go, Red now throws her shade over the home of a Muslim family that includes a shy, gentle 10-year-old girl, Samar, who sneaks into her yard every night to visit Red and is soon accepted by the tree creatures. Bongo gives Samar gifts from her hoard of trinkets. But something has changed: Samar’s family is not welcomed by the neighborhood. Angry men yell out insults as they drive by. They throw eggs at the house. And one horrible morning, a boy attacks her bark with a screwdriver. Red can tell “from the determined way he moved that it was meant to hurt.” What he writes is aimed at the hearts of the Muslim family: LEAVE." ~ Dominique Browning, New York Times, Review
Funny, deep, warm, and nuanced, this is Katherine Applegate at her very best—writing from the heart, and from a completely unexpected point of view.
Faerie Maven-Pralou presents, live in voice.
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