Starred Review ALA Booklist (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 1998)

Starred Review A nonlinear narrative spun out from actions, both good and bad, and their ever-circling consequences, Fleischman's latest is an unusual construction, its parts fitting together in delicate balance, much like those of the whirligig of the title and the story's central metaphor. Driving home drunk from a party, Brent tries to kill himself by letting go of the wheel but instead kills another teenager. Her grief-stricken mother doesn't seek revenge; rather, she hands Brent a 45-day Greyhound bus pass and tells him that, since her daughter Lea loved whirligigs, she wants Brent to build four, each with Lea's face and name, and plant them in the four corners of the U.S.--Washington State, California, Maine, and Florida. Brent's journey of expiation across that summer alternates with beautiful, quicksilver stories, told in different time frames, of how the whirligigs that he builds and leaves behind profoundly affect the lives of a too-studious eighth-grader and her best friend in Maine, a Puerto Rican street sweeper in Miami, an adopted Korean boy in Washington, and a teenager and her dying grandmother in San Diego. Brent never becomes quite real; his struggle with tools, directions, and sorrow sometimes is pulled under by its own weight, but the story as a whole and the inner sense of self that Brent achieves through his experiences are mesmerizing. The language of the whirligig stories gleams and soars: a metaphor of movement, dance, laughter, and irrepressible life. Like the ritual journey in Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons (1994) and Uncle Ob's whirligigs in Cynthia Rylant's Missing May (1992), loss, fear, and guilt in Fleischman's story find a universally recognizable shape. (Reviewed April 1, 1998)

Horn Book (Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 1998)

Humiliated at a party, Brent tries to commit suicide while driving home but instead kills a seventeen-year-old girl. Desperate to atone, Brent agrees to the victim's mother's request that he build four whirligigs and set them up in the four corners of the United States as monuments to her daughter. In this intricately structured novel, Fleischman skillfully connects the stories of several people to the evolution of his main character.

Kirkus Reviews

At once serious and playful, this tale of a teenager's penitential journey to four corners of the country can be read on several levels. While attempting to kill himself on the highway after a humiliating social failure, Brent causes a fatal accident for another motorist, Lea Zamora. His sentence requires a personal act of atonement, if the victim's family so desires; Lea's mother hands him a bus pass and tells him to place pictorial whirligigs in Maine, Florida, Washington, and California as monuments to her daughter's ability to make people smile. Brent sets out willingly, armed with plywood, new tools, and an old construction manual. Characteristically of Fleischman (Seedfolks, 1997, etc.), the narrative structure is unconventional: Among the chapters in which Brent constructs and places the contraptions are independent short stories that feature the whirligigs, playing significant roles in the lives of others. Brent encounters a variety of travelers and new thoughts on the road, and by the end has lost much of the sense of isolation that made his earlier aspirations to be one of the in-crowd so important. The economy of language and sustained intensity of feeling are as strongly reminiscent of Cynthia Rylant's Missing May (1992) as are the wind toys and, at least in part, the theme, but Fleischman's cast and mood are more varied, sometimes even comic, and it's Brent's long physical journey, paralleled by his inner one, that teaches him to look at the world and himself with new eyes. (Fiction. 12-14)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

After a drunk teenage boy kills a girl while driving, his life is transformed by fulfilling a request of the girl's mother. PW's boxed review called Fleischman's novel """"stellar."""" Ages 12-up. (Nov.)

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up--Vapid, self-absorbed, status-conscious Brent attends a party at which he suffers a very public rejection by the girl he's been lusting after. Drunk, furious, and unable to deal with his humiliation, he tries to kill himself on the trip home, but his reckless driving kills a stranger instead: a lovely, talented, motivated, high school senior. Though Brent's parents would like to minimize his sense of guilt and his punishment, Brent himself is tormented and longs to make some restitution. The court arranges a meeting with his victim's mother, who asks Brent to "make four whirligigs, of a girl that looks like Lea....Then set them up in Washington, California, Florida, and Maine--the corners of the United States." The brilliant Fleischman has written a beautifully layered, marvelously constructed novel that spins and circles in numerous directions. Readers follow the creation of each whirligig and its impact on one or more observer: a young violinist, a Holocaust survivor, a Puerto Rican street-sweeper. They also follow Brent's journey by bus to the corners of the country and of his journey within himself to find a balance between recrimination and reconciliation. Though Whirligig has linear movement, it impresses readers more with its sense of interconnected spiraling. Brent's skill and inventiveness grow with each whirligig. The emotional responses of those who see his creations likewise vary: some find joy, some peace, some equilibrium. There is enormous vitality and hopefulness expressed in this brief masterwork.--Miriam Lang Budin, Mt. Kisco Public Library, NY