Readers who identify with Wendell may feel a call to action; those who identify with Callie may just be exasperated at the...
It’s 1953 in Celeste, Kentucky, and 11-year-old Callie Robinson wants to report news for the local black newspaper, the Advance. Wendell Crow is quite the opposite; the white boy spends his summer days by the river, hoping no one will notice him.
When Callie goes in search of a stray dog and Wendell tries to find an old cabin said to be hidden in the woods, the two children inevitably cross paths and join forces. Both cabin and dog lead Callie and Wendell to learn about a white boy who drowned in the river some years prior. The third-person narration alternates its focus primarily between Callie and Wendell but also includes Mr. Renfrow, the Advance’s editor, and two ghosts: the drowned boy and an enslaved child who died there heading north. The inclusion of the ghosts stresses the importance of remembering the past, but unfortunately, they dilute the urgency of the present-day plot. Segregated Celeste’s balance depends on not “troubling the water,” but Callie and Wendell’s mystery plays out against Mr. Renfrow’s call for the integration of the town swimming pool; both lead to violence. Dowell writes a quiet story that largely relies on metaphor and indirection to guide its readers. Callie is limned with bold strokes: she is brave, feisty, and determined. While Wendell too is drawn broadly—he often defaults to period-typical stereotyping about race and gender, but he also has an intrinsic sense of fairness—he is given more of a character arc, as expressed when Mr. Renfrow tells Callie that Wendell is only just learning what it means to be “an eyewitness to injustice.” The conclusion leaves Callie and Wendell’s, and Celeste’s, story unresolved.
Readers who identify with Wendell may feel a call to action; those who identify with Callie may just be exasperated at the inaction. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-2463-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
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