This companion to Night Journey (1981) explores the plight of 15-year-old Reuven Bloom, a brilliant young Russian Jewish violinist whose music is “broken” by the horrors of late-19th-century pogroms. When his shtetl is attacked by marauding Cossacks and his family—save for his toddler sister—are slaughtered, Reuven desperately flees, shouldering little Rachel in a basket, until they reach family in Poland. A bitter Reuven joins an elite revolutionary group and becomes a demolitions expert. He makes the wrenching decision to let Rachel leave for America with relatives and stays behind to continue to exact vengeance. When the moment for revenge against his own family’s murderer and thief of his expensive violin comes, though, Reuven has tired of killing and he merely wrests his beloved instrument back. By story’s end, it is the early-20th century and Reuven arrives in New York and reunites with his family. The author offers readers, in a Dear America–style epilogue, follow-up information about Reuven’s life. Lasky’s writing is straightforward and unsentimental, sometimes a little pat, and her hero is a relatable and admirable protagonist. (historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-05931-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2005
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
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
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