Dani Noir [Hardcover]

Nova Ren Suma (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 2009 | Age Level: 9 and up

If this were a movie, you'd open to the first page of this book and be transported to a whole other world. Everything would be in black and white, except maybe for the girl in pink polka-dot tights, and this really great music would start to swell in the background. All of a sudden, you wouldn't be able to help it -- you'd be a part of the story, you'd be totally sucked in. You'd be in this place, filled with big lies, mysterious secrets, and a tween girl turned sleuth....

Zoom in on thirteen-year-old Dani Callanzano. It's the summer before eighth grade, and Dani is stuck in her nothing-ever-happens town with only her favorite noir mysteries at the Little Art movie theater to keep her company.

But one day, a real-life mystery begins to unravel -- at the Little Art! And it all has something to do with a girl in polka-dot tights.... Armed with a vivid imagination, a flair for the dramatic, and her knowledge of all things Rita Hayworth, Dani sets out to solve the mystery, and she learns more about herself than she ever though she could.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6–8—Summer looks bleak to 13-year-old Danielle Callanzano. Her best friend has moved away, her father has recently split, and her mother is acting sad and weepy. Dani finds escape in the glamorous film noir world at the Little Art, a local retro movie theater in her sleepy upstate New York town. There she finds companionship in Austin, the son of the owner, and his cousin Jackson, the projectionist. Drawn by the mystery and moral ambiguity of her femme-fatale idol, Rita Hayworth, Dani employs sarcasm, evasion, and lies to her mom in hopes of forestalling a weekend visit with her father and his girlfriend. She craves a mystery, and one arises from her suspicion that Jackson, 17, is a two-timer. She uses Facebook and the camera in her cell phone to gain incriminating evidence. The mystery, however, feels contrived, driven by drama and anger, and the first-person narration focuses so exclusively on Dani and her fantasies that the other characters and relationships suffer as a result. Once Mom regains her composure as a parent, Dani is grounded for her deceptive exploits. She finally finds cause to apologize and make peace with family and friends in a plot that turns on her personal growth.—Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT
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From Booklist

Seventh-grader Dani is spending the summer doing two things: brooding about her parents’ divorce and going to the Little Art movie theater to watch noir films. An older teen, Jackson, who runs the projector and dates Dani’s former babysitter, is a kindred spirit. Then Dani sees Jackson with a girl who wears polka-dot stockings. Is she a femme fatale like the ones in the movies, who wants to break up the happy couple? Suma sets herself a big task for a first-time author: building her story around film noir, a subject unknown to most of her audience. She does a pretty good job, however, of making the films intriguing enough to pique interest. The weaker parts of the book are where Dani plays detective, trying to figure out the identity of the “other woman,” and tying Jackson’s betrayal to that of her father, who left the family for another woman. What Suma gets just right is Dani’s burning anger toward her dad, especially his insistence that she become a participant in his ready-made new family. An atmospheric cover will draw readers. Grades 5-8. --Ilene Cooper

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Aladdin; 1 edition (September 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416975640
• ISBN-13: 978-1416975649
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #994,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nova Ren Suma is the author of the YA novel IMAGINARY GIRLS, available now from Dutton Books. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and a BA in writing & photography from Antioch College and has been awarded fiction fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo. She also wrote the middle-grade novel DANI NOIR. For more about Nova, visit novaren.com or check out the official IMAGINARY GIRLS website: imaginarygirlsbook.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Encore--wishing for a sequel to this book, October 3, 2009

By 

Christine Lee Zilka (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dani Noir (Hardcover)

Confession: I am not a tween. I am...uh...I am the age of someone who could be the mother of a tween. But I read this book anyway, with no affinity for noir movies and uh, being outside the age range of the book's audience. I do, however, have an affinity for sharp writing, a voice I can fall in love with, characters I can root for over the span of 100+ pages, and a plot that takes me out of my life and into the life of said characters.

Nova Ren Suma hits it out of the ballpark with Dani's voice and the characters in this novel. Dani's struggles with friendships, alienation, a long summer, and family are universal themes for everyone, including tweens, and so she is someone most readers can and will relate to. Additionally, Suma's writing is so sharp, the story so detailed, that I even found myself being very interested in noir movies, a genre that Suma uses to great effect in this novel, and uses in a way that doesn't exclude me as someone who isn't familiar with the noir movie genre--it is a great use of the metaphor and I loved it, so much so that I am wishing for a sequel to this book. I'd love to follow Dani's trajectory as she grows up--and I'm thinking tween readers would, too.

I wish this book existed when I was a tween.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, September 13, 2009

By 

Bri Meets Books (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dani Noir (Hardcover)

Dani Callanzano is thirteen, going into eighth grade, and living a ho-hum life in Shanosha, New York. Craving the dramatics of the noir films she loves, run at the town's Little Art theatre, Dani is intrigued when a mysterious girl in polka dot tights appears. Soon she's investigating strange circumstances, just like her celluloid heroes. But in solving the mystery, Dani discovers there's more to it and her life than she ever thought possible. Since I love classic movies and anything that is "noir," I knew I'd love this novel. Who couldn't love a novel that namedrops Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles? I was right - there's a lot to love.

One of the big strengths of Dani Noir, author Nova Ren Suma's style of writing is cinematic, with each word easily conjuring images in the viewer's mind. Here the screenwriting adage "show, don't tell" is followed - we can visualize Dani's quiet life easily.

"A slow fade-in on my life: There's this little mountain town, smack between two long highways that go nowhere in either direction. There's the one supermarket, the one movie theater, the one Chinese restaurant. But there are about twelve different places to buy junk for your lawn."

Yet there's a conversational tone, like you're talking to your best friend. It's hard to believe that Suma isn't a teen herself, the dialogue is that accurate, that real. You'll see a little bit of yourself and other people you know in the characters, and although Dani may be thirteen, the situations in her life - friendship, divorce, big city dreams in a small town, etc, will resonate with you. In the end, there's only one mystery left to Dani Noir, and that one is for the reader: why didn't a book like this arrive sooner?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Made me want to watch Noir film..., September 26, 2009

By 

Sarah Woodard (Bremerton, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dani Noir (Hardcover)

Dani Callanzano is stuck in her nothing-ever-happens town with only her favorite noir mysteries at the Little Art movie theatre to keep her company. Her best friend has moved out of town and no longer calls Dani often. Her father also is getting remarried and she will be getting a mean sister-in-law, Nichole. So she is alone in the town. But one day a real-life mystery begins to unravel at Little Art! And it all has something to do with a girl in polka-dot tights. Dani is armed with a vivid imagination, a flair for the dramatic, and a knowledge of all things Rita Hayworth. She sets out to solve the mystery and learns more about herself than she ever thought that she would.

This book had an awesomeness that is hard to explain. Dani is stubborn, which is usual for most thirteen years old. I am going to have to check out some more noir movies, since I haven't seen them all. It was great to see Dani's love of movies and how passionate she was about all things Rita Hayworth. I also could relate to the problems at home and the lost of her best friend, because that happened to me around the same age. The plot was really interesting and created a great story. Suma was a great writer and created a story like no other. I recommend that you check out this book for a great mystery.