At once evocative of times past and more cogent than ever.
A fresh translation of an acclaimed 1963 novel about the rise of fascism in pre–World War II Greece.
Zei’s tale sensitively chronicles both rising political tensions and general patterns of life on a Greek island in the mid-1930s, when the country was under the dictatorship of Gen. Ioannis Metaxas, as seen through the eyes of 7-year-old Melia. The plot begins with summer idylls in a fishing village and stories about the stuffed wildcat in Aunt Despina’s parlor and goes on to include book burnings, searches and seizures by constables, and a wild emotional meltdown when Myrto, Melia’s naïve big sister, learns that the phalanx of “our dictator’s youth organization” that she proudly joined at school is just a gang of miscreants. There’s something genuinely childlike about the way Melia goes from initially caring far more about the pleasures of rambling along the rocky shoreline with friends than the half-heard conversations of worried grown-ups to a sharp awareness of the growing, pervasive tensions in her world and its ideological causes. Her journey invites modern young readers to see potential parallels in their own times. The book’s original U.S. release won a Mildred L. Batchelder Award for its publisher in 1970; this edition, translated by a Princeton University professor of comparative literature, invites readers in through its conversational tone and vivid details.
At once evocative of times past and more cogent than ever. (translator’s note) (Historical fiction. 8-13)Pub Date: May 28, 2024
ISBN: 9781632063649
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Yonder
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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