John Brown spent the summer before his quixotic 1859 raid on the Harpers Ferry arsenal secretly marshalling men and weapons on a nearby farm, with two women, one his 15-year-old daughter Annie, to keep house and present the appearance of normality to prying eyes. Spinning Annie's character from sparse contemporary accounts, Rinaldi (The Second Bend in the River, p. 63, etc.) fleshes her out as a severe young woman who shares her driven father's strong-mindedness, loving and hating him with equal intensity. Aware of her father's few successes and many failures in life, Annie watches him and the two dozen followers he gathers come to terms with the fact that many of them are about to die. The author sticks closely to the record, inventing few if any characters or events (although Brown anachronistically refers to his band as ``Young Turks''); Annie recalls her family's struggles and her father's exploits as an anti-slavery militant in Kansas, then describes the Harpers Ferry raid in bitter, clinical, death-by-death detail. There are parallels here with modern episodes of vigilantism, but the author's real focus is on a daughter's relationship with her iconic father, and in the end she becomes his witness. It's a powerful story, and for readers who find the large cast hard to keep track of, Rinaldi recapitulates in an afterword, and appends a bibliography. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-590-54318-0
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1997
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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