Glenda MillardResenhas

CW: Sexual assault of teen. child soldiers

3.5 Stars

A dystopian novel, a complex and haunting exploration of life on the edge and what it takes to triumph over adversity. A story about the indomitable nature of hope and relationships.
Two young boys, an old tramp, a beautiful teenage dancer, named Tia, and her baby, they are survivors of a sudden war. They form a fragile family, hiding out in the ruins of an amusement park. As they scavenge for food, diapers, and baby formula, they must stay out of sight of vicious gangs and lawless solders. At first they rely on Billy, the only adult in the group. But as civil life deteriorates, Billy starts to fall apart. Skip, who is barely into his teens, must take over and lead them on a search for sanctuary. A sad story of the lengths a person will go to to survive, I felt especially sad for Tia who had to make mind damaging decisions to survive. I felt that there were many ways to interpret the story dependent on your own life experiences. I would read this book again

Real Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: i am the girl manny loves. the girl who writes our story in the book of flying. i am alice.

Alice is fifteen, with hair as red as fire and skin as pale as bone. Something inside Alice is broken: she remembers words, but struggles to speak them. Still, Alice knows that words are for sharing, so she pins them to posters in tucked-away places: railway waiting rooms, fish-and-chips shops, quiet corners. Manny is sixteen, with a scar from shoulder to elbow. Something inside Manny is broken, too: he once was a child soldier, forced to do terrible, violent things. But in a new land with people who care for him, Manny explores the small town on foot. And in his pocket, he carries a poem he scooped up, a poem whose words he knows by heart. The relationship between Alice and Manny will be the beginning of love and healing. And for these two young souls, perhaps, that will be good enough.

Beautiful, lyrical prose, told in two voices, lifts up a poignant story of two traumatized teens who find each other in a small riverside town.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: The end of 2015 was a time that I, personally, was healing from some awful emotional and psychic wounds. At that moment, I wasn't really up to reading adult-level books. I thought that, since they're aimed at people of (say) twelve or thirteen, YA books would be about perfect for me. Not too rough, not too simplistic.

You idiot, I want to find my younger, more naïve self and shout at him.

This is a charming story of young love, of the viperous depredations of haters inculcated in a sense of their own superiority and imperviousness to blame, of the astounding prices we exact from those too weak to resist. They're all done up in ribbons of florid language in this book, and the use of typographical tomfoolery...Alice's narration is without capitals, while Manny's is in a blocky sans-serif type and in very English-as-a-second-language words...is pervasive. In fact it sort of defines the ethos and the aesthetic of the story. Which explains the missing stars.

Yes, it will appeal to the target audience. No, it did nothing but detract from the touching story being told. The stars stay gone.

Small-town stardom and the general veneration in US culture for sports stars at all levels is under very effective attack in this story. Manny is a child soldier being gentled into mainstream society by some very good souls. His father figure, Bull, is a former high-school sports phenom. It's natural that Manny would map his own efforts onto Bull's pattern. That he is good at it is the source of his worst, most believable crisis.

Alice is, it's fair to say, a social outcast from a family of them. She's neurodivergent, she's a poet, she's all sorts of things people feel skittish about. She has Bear, a medical-assistance dog, which frankly was something I'd been largely unaware of the existence of for people like Alice. So it was natural and inescapable that their outsiderness calls each to the other. There really is no way to argue that it would ever be otherwise, either in reality or in fiction. Alice's father is in prison, her mother ran the hell away from the troubles, and her brother Joey has designs on a girl above his station. That girl's brother, the sports star, decides he'll make absolutely sure he drives a spike into these designs and uses Manny and Alice as his sledgehammer.

Stuff gets ugly. Stuff happens that inevitably will happen in every life. And all of it in the silly-buggers typography that caused me, too many times to count, to go back and forth and back and forth to figure out if we're still in the same sentence because NO CAPS = NO BREAKS!

Well, anyway, that's the old man speaking. And you'll notice that I finished the book, so the story obviously offered me something I wanted enough to keep laboriously decoding the damn thing.

That it did. Alice and Manny. Joey and Tilda. Bull and Louisa. People doing more than the minimum, for no reason other than it's the right thing to do. People reaching into each other's dark places and standing with the whole person not just the pretty, easy bits.

It's a well-made story that takes us on a realistic enough journey through a culture in the throes of challenge and change. So much for a simple, easy-to-process little story, eh what?½

A heart warming picture book!

I would love to live in the Kingdom of Silk: keeping bees, baking my own bread, enjoying outdoor brunches with soft-boiled eggs (that are wearing knitted caps to keep them warm, of course). So simple and so lovely.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own. Also, the quote I used may have changed or been altered in some way, but I am quoting from what I received.

Bahh bahh black sheep (that's me)... I struggled with this after two pages, but I kept going until I got to Manny's perspective. I know a lot of people have liked this, and they say the story is beautiful, but I found it really hard to follow the writing. I understand that Alice has brain damage, and I appreciate the authenticity the author was going for, but it didn't work for me. There are no capital letters when Alice is speaking, she makes up her own words when something doesn't make sense, and she switches from sentences to poetry quite often. It was hard for me to follow, so I felt like I was missing important aspects of the story.

I thought Manny's perspective would have been easier to read from, but one of the first things he says is, "It was a girl. Her hair was very long. Down to her waist it was. That is how I knew that person was a girl," and I was finished. I know the synopsis mentions him being broken, too, so I guess it makes sense on some level, but it was a struggle for me.

I really wanted to like this, so I hate that it wasn't a good fit. However, if the formatting doesn't bother you, definitely give it a shot. I can honestly say that the voice is original, and Alice brings a unique perspective to the story.


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If I ignore the beautiful illustrations, the words could be between a parent and child, lovers, or friends. Instead it is the daring escape, hope, and anticipation of a refugee family. the enchanting watercolor illustrations exemplify courage, joy, and resilience. This picture book would not be fully understood by the youngest "readers", but they would enjoy it for its rhythm and rhyme and lovely pictures. For older children this book could spark a conversation about refugees and helping each other. It certainly shows how we are all on this earth traveling through space TOGETHER.

I started this book and then almost put it down...I felt like Alice had been victimized enough, or it felt like conceit of a traumatized, speechless, terribly poor girl was somehow exploitive. I kept going and really fell into the book and cared much for the two main characters. It's a lovely sad book, with a hopeful ending.There's a lot of living packed into these short book. Well worth the read!!

Having experienced a traumatic event and crushing head blows when she was 12, Alice has trouble expressing herself verbally, and instead writes poems. She feels stuck at age 12 to the outside world, but inside she is longing to prove to the world that she is more than just what happened to her. Manny, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, runs to escape the brutalities of his past. He’s trying to adjust to his new family and his new life, but he feels just as broken as Alice. When he finds one of her poems, her words speak to him, and the two forge a connection in spite of their differences and in spite of those who want to beat them down and keep them apart.

This book and the characters will haunt you long after you finish the last page. Alice’s words are insightful and revealing in their simplistic beauty. The protective love that envelopes Alice, her brother Joey, their grandmother and grandfather, and their dog Bear, is enviable, and when Alice’s full story is revealed, readers feel that same sense of protection and love toward all of them. The ending will leave you breathless, but filled with hope that love and courage can heal all.

Highly recommended for gr. 9-12.

Older YA
I wasn't too sure about this book at first. It's written in a unique way, and it takes a little getting used to. Once I was into the book though, it really wasn't a problem at all. Alice lives with her grandmother and her younger brother. Alice has a brain injury. The story is about how we see ourselves and others, how we judge differences, and how much we do not know, because we cannot see all of a person. It's about forgiveness and love and second chances. Highly recommended.

This review and many more like it are available at Read Till Dawn.

I'm struggling to review The Stars at Oktober Bend.

I really don't know what to say. Is it a good book? I think so. Did I personally enjoy it? Not all that much. Can I even remember half of what happens? Nope. Does that make me a bad person? Hopefully not.

Basically, it's the sort of meaningful, lyrical, poignant book that we're all supposed to fall head over heels for. Alice's story is tragic and haunting, and Manny's is equally so.

Or at least, it is once we find out what it is. Unfortunately, so much time is taken up with Alice–her muddled narration, her backstory, her vivid memories and those she blocked out–that there isn't nearly as much focus on Manny. We learn that he was a child soldier, that he is traumatized, and that he quickly falls for Alice. And that's almost all the details we get in the entire book.

Perhaps that is the root of my troubles with the book, my apathy toward their relationship. I cared about Alice, but not so much about Manny because I didn't know him. And besides, I was really just so mad at all the people who did wrong by both of them throughout their lives that I struggled to find much to enjoy.

I genuinely do think this is a good book–it's lyrical and meaningful and poignant, and its exploration of Alice's family dynamics in particular is very well-drawn. But the book and I didn't entirely click. If you're interested (and won't be triggered by mentions of rape), then, by all means, do give it a go. Hopefully you will be able to get more out of it than I did.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I love the Kingdom of Silk! A lovely last book, though I wish there would be more!½

I received an ARC print copy [Advanced Reader’s Copy] from the publisher through the Early Readers giveaway they had on LibraryThing, the US edition of the book got released on May 8, 2018 which is why I’m writing my review now; and that the following is my honest opinion.

I found this book to a beautifully crafted poignant story fraught with emotions of two young teenagers who have found each other. The book is written from the POV of both protagonists, Alice and Manny. While each chapter tells us which POV we will be reading, the author, to further differentiate between the two uses only lowercase letters when we’re Alice’s POV and the regular uppercase and lowercase letters when we’re in Manny’s POV. I found that while Ms. Millard’s tenacious use of lowercase for Alice’s POV to be a MAJOR distraction in being able in reading it with ease, I also found it to have been a cunning way in getting her readers to pay more attention to what Alice is thinking about and is saying. The use of lowercase letter is reminiscent of my high school days when I had to reading the poetry of e. e. cummings.

While these individuals might have had incidents in their younger days which has caused each of them to have a broken life today; the relationship which develops between them is one which is apt to become the beginning of their much-needed revitalization and healing process for their lives; which is why I’ve given this book 5 STARS.

While difficult to read at first, due to the lack of capitalization in Alice's chapters, I found that after the introduction of Manny's regularly written chapters, I found the reading smoother.
A poetic story about a very hurt girl who is fifteen in years, but stuck at twelve in ability. Twelve is when the bad thing happened and her head got hurt.
But Alice is able to write and write she does. She leaves little poems on paper scraps around town. She goes to the roof of her house on stilts near the river and tosses her words out to the world. She creates beautiful fishing flies and her brother, Joey, sells them to a man in town. Joey takes care of Alice and their grandmother. Bear, Alice's dog, protects her at all times.
One day Manny is out running, the only way he can escape his memories, and he sees Alice on her roof. Then he finds one of her poems. Their budding friendship coincides with Joey's attraction to Tilda, a girl in town.
The four bond and for the first time, Joey and Alice bring friends home.
A touching coming of age story.

When we meet Alice, she is the product of a broken (but loving) family and the victim of a shocking crime. Brain-damaged and unable to speak properly, she nonetheless finds her voice in poetry and art, and discovers her own self-worth upon seeing it reflected in the eyes of a sensitive boy named Manny. Millard’s writing style is lyrical and lovely, and lulls you into a poetic reading experience; however, the ending was a bit jarring as the book went from being relatively plot-less and character-driven to becoming an action-packed adventure story with a completely different tone from earlier. Ultimately, amidst some very bleak and tragic moments, hope shines brightly in this story and stands as a conquering force against the dark.

This book is very unusual. The chapters are interspersed with poems, and there are two central characters, Alice and Many. They are both broken in their own way, although both live in families that have been patched together due to the circumstances of their lives.

Alice had a hard time using words to communicate but has a gift with words and small tokens that are bits of poetry strewn about her world. She lives with her brother and grandmother and avoids getting close to strangers. She trusts her brother to shelter and protect her from the world and the hurts it so often contains. Alice is fifteen, but childlike in many ways.

Manny is sixteen and was a soldier once. He lives with Bull and Louis James, who seem to want the best for him, a chance to be like others his age.When a child has once been a soldier, that seems like an impossible dream.

These two came together because of her little poems, the thoughts she left scattered behind her like crumbs. It seems that perhaps they are meant for each other, but only time will tell.

This is a lovely little book. In another lifetime, or maybe earlier in this one, before the world became jagged and dark, I think I would have loved this book. These days, it made me impatient and even angry. You should try it though ~ especially if your life has sosfter edges.

I really enjoyed this story. The writing is superb!

Alice is a fifteen-year-old who lives with her grandmother and her brother, Joey. Her mother has abandoned them; her father has died and her grandfather is in jail. Grandma is suffering from emphysema. Alice was attacked three years ago. The attack left her unable to speak properly, but she can write poetry. Sections of the book narrated by Alice contain very sparse prose and free-verse poetry. These sections are so well done, giving Alice a distinct and strong voice.

Manny has recently been adopted by a local family after spending time as a child soldier in Africa. He finds some of Alice's poetry and is drawn to her. Their relationship is a beautiful one of acceptance and healing.

I thought the writing was excellent, and the way the author was able to portray Alice as a complex person, even though Alice herself often had trouble articulating her thoughts was masterful. The plot was a bit like a made-for-TV movie, but it worked because of the writing and character development. I'd read more by this author.

I loved this book. All aspects of this story were simple yet complex which I really like. For being a picture book the content was at a 5th or 6th grade level or even higher. I really liked the language used throughout the story, it was clear and patterned with a touch of rhyming which made it really interesting to read. For example, "Once Tom's darling sewed a greatcoat, and she buttoned it with brass. She stitched each seem with tenderness and lined it with her love. Once she prayed to heaven above." I also really loved the illustrations in this book, I think that they enhance the story and they fit the mood being portrayed in the story. All of the images are very fitting for what is happening in the story, even the tragic parts of the story have fitting illustrations which I think really help to make this story so great. I think the main idea of this story is to show that life does have hardships but we can overcome it and still have a hope for good and peace.

Very bright and colorful and I like the use of different patterns on the children's clothing. Drawings are whimsical and have a floating feeling. It is a "building on" story like "This is the house that Jack Built" or "There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly," with rhyming, repetition and alliteration. Fun to read aloud for story time or rhyme time. Would be fun for each child to have a line and say it as the story builds and continue with that line with the group reading aloud all through the story. Wonderful book!

I’m at a bit of a loss with this one. The writing is beautiful, but I found Skip’s voice just wasn’t convincing. I couldn’t keep a picture of him in my head as his age kept slipping away from me. The ending was great, but the build-up didn’t really grab me. Maybe it was my mood?

This is one of those books that I would read again and savour the beautiful poetry and imagery. I wanted to know the story and had to get through it. Told from the perspective of two teenagers whose lives have been traumatised by events beyond their control. We find out what happened to Alice and Manny gradually. The horrors they experienced do not dominate the story but do leave one saddened by the knowledge. There is more light than darkness in the telling of this story. It is about a girl and and a boy who fall in love, about the power of love and acceptance, about the love and protection of family and the ability to move beyond tragedy with renewed hope.

This book was absolutely brilliant up until the last few chapters when it seemed to finish in a rush. Alice is 15, the victim of an unspeakable crime at 12 which has left her unable to speak properly due to head injuries and suffering from seizures. Instead, she writes poetry and notes which she places around the country town where she lives and instead of going to school, ties fishing flies. Her brother Joey can understand her slurred speech and is very protective of her. The two live with their grandmother after their father died and their mother abandoned them. Their grandfather is in jail - why we find out later - and the town generally shuns the grandmother who is dying of emphysema and Alice. Alice's only constant companion is a giant helper dog called Bear.
Into the town comes Manny James, who has been adopted after being a boy soldier in Africa. Haunted by his own traumatic past, he recognises in Alice's poetry her need to be seen as more than the event that happened to her, and after witnessing a seizure at the football club, finds himself becoming a part of both Joey and Alice's life. Complicating things, Joey is in love with the beautiful Tilda who loves him in return, provoking the ire of the jocks at the town's football club where Manny plays.
The end of the book sees a flood coming to Oktober Bend and the river that flows next to Alice's house and choices to be made about who can get rescued when.

Alice's story is all told in lower case and interspersed with poems. Manny's story is in correct prose. Both have horrific tales to tell of the past. (SPOILER ALERT: Alice was raped by 2 men while waiting for Joey and the Grandfather while they were shrimping at night. The rapists tried to kill her by bashing her skull in with a rock. The grandfather was so irate that he shot at the men while they were driving away and one died. Manny was a boy soldier forced to kill and witness to his own sister's rape and mother's death in Africa.)
I loved both main characters and the supplementary characters of Joey and Tilda. I thought the bully was a bit cartoonish in comparison, considering it was his brother who raped and was killed on that fateful night. The ending is a little bit too twee after the gripping beginning and revelations from the past.

A book that explores the effects of war on the most marginalized of society--the homeless, young runaways, orphans. Narrated by Skip, the 13 yr. old protagonist, in a somber, yet hopeful tone as he struggles to survive with the "family" he has picked up along the way: Billy, an old homeless man Skip knew from the city; Max, a small boy found in the ruins of the library; and Tia, a teenage dancer discovered at a theme park along with her baby, Sixpence. While the city's bombing and enemy occupation are what propel the action in the story, this is a more meditative study on a desperate situation and the lengths one goes to ensure survival and a sense of hope.

This book is beautifully written and has some lovely characters in it - old Billy, Skip, Tia, her baby, Sixpence, and little Max (who is personally my favourite). Although we never understand why war starts, it brings together these five characters who become a 'family' with their home being an abandoned fun fair. Skip narrates the story and I enjoyed his artistic view of the world (light, colour, shadows) and his strong need to protect those in his care. This is a touching story of hope and survival with an ending I was not expecting.

I liked the fable-like story, and loved the illustrations. They led me to other stories in my imagination. Very satisfying read/viewing/imagining.