If it’s more common for girls in literature to be great readers and poor math students, then 13-year-old Hannah is certainly different. She can’t read but she has an incredible facility for numbers and for mathematical processes. Home for this Depression-era girl is a dairy farm in Pennsylvania and school is a one-room building in need of repairs. When rich Mrs. Sweet comes from the Mayor’s Education Reform Board in Philadelphia, she offers Hannah an extraordinary opportunity: Hannah can live with Mrs. Sweet, attend a fancy private school, and take a test for a math scholarship to a fancy college. The conflict, not unexpectedly, is poor vs. rich and farm vs. town. Hannah’s parents reluctantly give her permission, perhaps in recognition that Hannah has received her talents from her grandfather. However, Hannah’s snobby new classmates look down on her. Only another of Mrs. Sweet’s charges, a boy with a talent for memorization, befriends Hannah and helps her learn to read by using newspaper accounts of gangsters as practice material. When her big math test is 20 days away, Hannah notes that 20/20 is perfect vision and calcium is 20 on the Periodic Table, automatically seeing patterns and sequences in numbers. Working with numbers is rational and real: “The answer was always waiting and perfect and standing alone.” Her conflict with her farming background builds when she returns home for her grandfather’s funeral. Hannah fails the big test but gains from the experience, realizing that she can still pursue her dream of studying mathematics. It will always be there for her and she will “go anywhere for it.” Hannah’s adoration of numbers and formulas borders on the obsessive and the positive conclusion seems somewhat at odds with the Depression-era setting, but she is a different and rarely seen role model. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7868-0879-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read.
Tyler is the son of generations of Vermont dairy farmers.
Mari is the Mexican-born daughter of undocumented migrant laborers whose mother has vanished in a perilous border crossing. When Tyler’s father is disabled in an accident, the only way the family can afford to keep the farm is by hiring Mari’s family. As Tyler and Mari’s friendship grows, the normal tensions of middle-school boy-girl friendships are complicated by philosophical and political truths. Tyler wonders how he can be a patriot while his family breaks the law. Mari worries about her vanished mother and lives in fear that she will be separated from her American-born sisters if la migra comes. Unashamedly didactic, Alvarez’s novel effectively complicates simple equivalencies between what’s illegal and what’s wrong. Mari’s experience is harrowing, with implied atrocities and immigration raids, but equally full of good people doing the best they can. The two children find hope despite the unhappily realistic conclusions to their troubles, in a story which sees the best in humanity alongside grim realities.
Though it lacks nuance, still a must-read. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85838-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
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An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel.
Sandy and his family, Japanese Canadians, experience hatred and incarceration during World War II.
Sandy Saito loves baseball, and the Vancouver Asahi ballplayers are his heroes. But when they lose in the 1941 semifinals, Sandy’s dad calls it a bad omen. Sure enough, in December 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor in the U.S. The Canadian government begins to ban Japanese people from certain areas, moving them to “dormitories” and setting a curfew. Sandy wants to spend time with his father, but as a doctor, his dad is busy, often sneaking out past curfew to work. One night Papa is taken to “where he [is] needed most,” and the family is forced into an internment camp. Life at the camp isn’t easy, and even with some of the Asahi players playing ball there, it just isn’t the same. Trying to understand and find joy again, Sandy struggles with his new reality and relationship with his father. Based on the true experiences of Japanese Canadians and the Vancouver Asahi team, this graphic novel is a glimpse of how their lives were affected by WWII. The end is a bit abrupt, but it’s still an inspiring and sweet look at how baseball helped them through hardship. The illustrations are all in a sepia tone, giving it an antique look and conveying the emotions and struggles. None of the illustrations of their experiences are overly graphic, making it a good introduction to this upsetting topic for middle-grade readers.
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel. (afterword, further resources) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0334-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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