Readers will be charmed and educated by this lovely historical novel.
This middle-grade adventure features a teen whose destiny connects 17th-century France with Scotland.
Thirteen-year-old Mercy Laroche left London by carriage a month ago. It’s 1694, and she travels the dangerous Scottish Highlands to locate Kingsnot Silver. Mercy is an orphan and French native who participates in the Auld Alliance, whereby Scotland and France exchange learned young girls with messages as a bond that unites them against England, should that nation ever attack either neighbor. But near Loch Eirahn, the carriage crashes. Mercy wakes and finds no sign of her driver or her chaperone, Mr. Willicks. Thankfully, a lad about her age steps from the wilderness. This is Calum MacDonald, who offers to help Mercy proceed on her journey. He brings her to Red Rob MacGregor, the local clan leader. While MacGregor hasn’t heard of Silver, he believes that a famous seannachie (storyteller) named Henderson may have. Yet Henderson lives in Glencoe, the site of a massacre by redcoats who killed Calum’s family. The lad has vowed never to return, which is why he’s chosen life in the Highlands with an adopted clan. Mercy, who has a club foot and is supremely knowledgeable in herb lore, must find Silver before the Auld Alliance deadline expires in less than two months. In this sequel, Macreery crafts a sweet historical fiction tale that emphasizes loyalty and perseverance for middle-grade audiences. Mercy readily finds feverfew flowers to ease Calum’s headache. And she easily disproves his assumption that she’s useless in the wilderness (“city born and city lived”). Throughout, the pair’s light bickering contributes to a romance that the author stokes gently, as Calum consistently proves himself the white knight to Mercy (“Exhausted, bleeding...and definitely in pain,” he “handed the canteen to me first”). Scotland’s beauty is noted in lines like “The early rays of the sun danced along the water’s surface making the entire loch glisten like a beautiful jewel.” At the end, Silver isn’t what Mercy expected, and readers are treated to a revelation about the famous Unicorn Tapestries. A bold final decision makes Mercy and Calum’s next trek one to follow.
Readers will be charmed and educated by this lovely historical novel.Pub Date: July 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-977228-35-2
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel.
Sandy and his family, Japanese Canadians, experience hatred and incarceration during World War II.
Sandy Saito loves baseball, and the Vancouver Asahi ballplayers are his heroes. But when they lose in the 1941 semifinals, Sandy’s dad calls it a bad omen. Sure enough, in December 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor in the U.S. The Canadian government begins to ban Japanese people from certain areas, moving them to “dormitories” and setting a curfew. Sandy wants to spend time with his father, but as a doctor, his dad is busy, often sneaking out past curfew to work. One night Papa is taken to “where he [is] needed most,” and the family is forced into an internment camp. Life at the camp isn’t easy, and even with some of the Asahi players playing ball there, it just isn’t the same. Trying to understand and find joy again, Sandy struggles with his new reality and relationship with his father. Based on the true experiences of Japanese Canadians and the Vancouver Asahi team, this graphic novel is a glimpse of how their lives were affected by WWII. The end is a bit abrupt, but it’s still an inspiring and sweet look at how baseball helped them through hardship. The illustrations are all in a sepia tone, giving it an antique look and conveying the emotions and struggles. None of the illustrations of their experiences are overly graphic, making it a good introduction to this upsetting topic for middle-grade readers.
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel. (afterword, further resources) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0334-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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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