A year-and-a-half after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, fear still grips 14-year-old Tomi Nakaji. His father’s fishing boat was sunk and his partner killed in an unjustified attack. Now the father is in an internment camp, his grandfather has just returned from a camp and Tomi is determined to stand up to Keet Wilson, the local haole (white) bully and raise that boat, a symbol of hope and courage in an embittered time. This sequel to Under the Blood-Red Sun (1994), winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, has one scene at its heart and might have been more effective as a short story. As a novel, however, it has a leisurely pace that allows an exploration of both racism and community, the meanness of Keet Wilson standing in contrast to the rich diversity of cultures in Tomi’s world—Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Filipino, Portuguese. The rousing final scene will have readers cheering. Salisbury’s previous work, Eyes of the Emperor (2005), is a fine companion, portraying the experience of Japanese-Americans in the war itself. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: July 25, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73121-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2006
It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
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
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