 | Pet Author: Emezi, Akwaeke | |
| Price: $9.83 | ||
Summary:
In a near-future society that claims to have gotten rid of all monstrous people, a creature emerges from a painting seventeen-year-old Jam's mother created, a hunter from another world seeking a real-life monster.
| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: MG+ Reading Level: 5.70 Points: 7.0 Quiz: 503967 |
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (+) (07/15/19)
School Library Journal (10/30/19)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (+) (00/09/19)
The Hornbook (00/11/19)
Full Text Reviews:
School Library Journal - 07/01/2019 Gr 7 Up—The only world Jam has ever known is that of Lucille, a town where the angels have ostensibly banished the monsters and dismantled the structures that allowed monsters and monstrous deeds to pervade. Lucille is a post-prison, post–school shooting, post–police brutality society. A society where someone like Jam, a selectively mute transgender teen, can live with complete acceptance, support, and love. Still, she can feel the hard truths of the world, can sense them in the air, hear them in words unsaid. When Jam steals into her mother Bitter's painting studio and unleashes Pet, a winged, horned, eyeless creature and monster hunter, from one of the paintings and into their world, life as she's known it begins to dissolve. Jam must confront the harsh realities of her world as she tentatively partners with Pet and ventures forward to avenge a wrong not yet discovered. This is a heart-stirring atmospheric page-turner, a terrific and terrible yet quiet adventure. Emezi spins a tale that defies categorization as strikingly as their characters, forcing readers to deeply rethink assumptions about identity, family structure, and justice. VERDICT A riveting and important read that couldn't be more well timed to our society's struggles with its own monsters.—Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, NJ - Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
Booklist - 07/01/2019 The debut title from Christopher Myers’ imprint, Make Me a World, tells the story of a girl named Jam who lives in a world without evil—or so she’s told. In the town of Lucille, monsters were overcome in a long-past revolution, so Jam is more than a little surprised when Pet, a creature her mom paints, comes to life and declares that he has come to hunt a monster—and he needs her help. Though a YA novel, this will appeal to readers across age ranges. Younger readers will enjoy the fantastical story line itself, while older readers will be able to look more deeply into its themes and pull out the social commentary on the hidden evils of our world that Emezi creatively weaves into the story. Just like Pet gently encourages Jam to see things unseen, to not be afraid, and to not forget, this book encourages its readers to do the same. Because as Jam notes, “Yes, people forget. But forgetting is dangerous. Forgetting is how the monsters come back.” - Copyright 2019 Booklist.
