Smiley's pristine, graceful prose and thoroughly real characters make this a novel to savor.
Smiley continues the story of Abby Lovitt and the horses on her family's California ranch in the 1960s.
When family friend and fellow stable-owner Jane sells Abby a horse for the change in her pocket, Abby is thrilled. True Blue, a gorgeous and personable gray, seems full of potential. But he comes with literal baggage—trunks of saddles and bridles and, most spookily, his dead former owner's boots. Abby shoves them out of sight, but she can't ignore Blue's own spookiness—he leaps and shies away from things no one else can see. Soon Abby is convinced that she, too, sees a ghost woman riding him. Meanwhile, Abby breaks her wrist, and an incident at her church brings her father's relationship with her estranged brother to a head. Abby has already learned how quickly things can go wrong—but now she learns that, sometimes, everything can also be put right. Readers who have been with this story from the beginning will enjoy watching narrator Abby continue to grow; newcomers will want to go back and start at the beginning with The Georges and the Jewels (2009).
Smiley's pristine, graceful prose and thoroughly real characters make this a novel to savor. (Historical fiction. 10 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86231-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
Compulsively readable and brilliant.
A rare look at the youth-led rebellion that toppled Romania’s Ceaușescu.
Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu, with his spiky hair, love of poetry and English, and crush on Liliana Pavel, is as much of a rebel as it’s possible to be in Bucharest, Romania, in 1989. Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu has been in power for 24 years, and most Romanians live in poverty, exporting what they produce to unknowingly fund Ceaușescu’s obscenely extravagant lifestyle. Wild dogs attack children in the streets, and secret agents are everywhere. When an agent confronts Cristian with evidence of treason—a single dollar bill tucked inside his notebook—and also offers medicine for Bunu, his sick grandfather, Cristian agrees to spy on the American diplomat family whose son he’s become friendly with. But as young Romanians gradually become aware that other countries have gained freedom from communism, they rise up in an unconquerable wave. Sepetys brilliantly blends a staggering amount of research with heart, craft, and insight in a way very few writers can. Told from Cristian’s point of view, intercut by secret police memos and Cristian’s own poetry, the novel crackles with energy; Cristian and his friends join the groundswell of young Romanians, combining pragmatism, subterfuge, hope, and daring. While the story ends with joy on Christmas Day, the epilogue recounts the betrayals and losses that follow. The last line will leave readers gasping.
Compulsively readable and brilliant. (maps, photos, author's note, research notes, sources) (Historical fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-984836-03-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
