Fourteen-year-old Kathleen (“Kit”) Byrne relates a first-person account of life during the Great Hunger of 1845-50 in Ireland. Living with her mother, father and two younger siblings, she works as a scullery maid at the manor of Lord Fraser until the devastating potato blight reaches County Wicklow and swiftly erodes her family’s marginal ability to survive. Aided by Lizzie, a wise woman with a touch of second sight, Kit matures into her family’s only provider. Pushed by the rapidly deteriorating situation, she makes a poor—and rather surprising—choice to try to stop Fraser’s brutal overseer from evicting her family, a somewhat implausible plot device that seems designed only to add suspense. Although the author weaves in many of the horrific details of the famine, she less effectively captures the voices of its victims. Dialogue in a modified dialect does not ring quite true, and Kit seems oversophisticated for her impoverished, uneducated background. Other characters are not fully developed. Purchase for audiences that enjoyed the much better Nory Ryan’s Song by Patricia Reilly Giff (2000). (historical note) (Historical fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-88995-402-1
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
From England’s Children’s Laureate, a searing WWI-era tale of a close extended family repeatedly struck by adversity and injustice. On vigil in the trenches, 17-year-old Thomas Peaceful looks back at a childhood marked by guilt over his father’s death, anger at the shabby treatment his strong-minded mother receives from the local squire and others—and deep devotion to her, to his brain-damaged brother Big Joe, and especially to his other older brother Charlie, whom he has followed into the army by lying about his age. Weaving telling incidents together, Morpurgo surrounds the Peacefuls with mean-spirited people at home, and devastating wartime experiences on the front, ultimately setting readers up for a final travesty following Charlie’s refusal of an order to abandon his badly wounded brother. Themes and small-town class issues here may find some resonance on this side of the pond, but the particular cultural and historical context will distance the story from American readers—particularly as the pace is deliberate, and the author’s hints about where it’s all heading are too rare and subtle to create much suspense. (Fiction. 11-13, adult)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63648-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2004
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
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