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Conly, Jane Leslie
6 Reviews
(2)
4-6
Pampered and innocent, fourteen-year-old Benjamin Franklin Orvell is kidnapped by a crew of oyster dredgers. He fears for his life from his abductors as well as from the backbreaking work and harsh weather. With all of society's veneer removed, he discovers just how far he'll go to survive. A finely crafted coming-of-age story that, despite its 1868 Chesapeake Bay setting, feels timeless.
Reviewer: Betty Carter
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
November, 2010
(4)
4-6
Illustrated by
Bonnie Leick.
A failing jazz club's impending foreclosure threatens a cockroach colony that lives in the shabby building. One of the bugs, Impetuous Roach (a.k.a. Impy), embarks on a plan to save both the club and the entire colony. Though the story lacks real suspense, the insect main characters make for a unique point of view.
Reviewer: Bethany Templeton Klem
(4)
YA
When thirteen-year-old Charlie and her younger brother, Jerry, join an investigation into their neighbor's murder, they begin to learn about evil in their Baltimore neighborhood: drug dealers who threaten Charlie's best friend's family and her own. Charlie's first-person voice is unconvincing, as is the unlikely outcome for the neighborhood, but sympathetic, quirky characters inhabit this lovingly described world.
Reviewer: Kathleen Isaacs
(2)
4-6
Each in his or her own way, three young people--ten-year-old Molly; Oluu, an argumentitive and arrogant shape-shifting alien; and Molly's classmate Jack--struggle with feeling different and alone, finding their place in the world (or in the universe), and remaining true to themselves. Conly keeps her emotionally involving story grounded in its rural northern Vermont setting and in its protagonists' perspectives.
Reviewer: Kitty Flynn
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
January, 2003
(2)
4-6
Staying with her great-aunt and -uncle while her mother recovers from an operation, twelve-year-old Dawn must cope alone with the realization that her hardscrabble friend Charlotte is being abused by her father. Setting the story in 1958 rural Virginia, Conly vividly yet subtly evokes era and place; and Dawn is entirely believable as a child who loses her innocence while grappling on her own with adult issues.
Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
May, 2000
(1)
4-6
A tough and compelling survival story is told from the point of view of five characters: siblings Earl, Frankie, and Angela (on their own after their aunt disappears on a drinking binge) and, from a very different part of the city, Maynard and Addie (whose pet rabbit has been stolen by affection-starved, seven-year-old Frankie). Conly writes convincingly and unsentimentally about the working-class poor in an urban setting.
Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.
6 reviews
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