A gripping, humane tale that examines what war demands of children and what it costs them.
A young girl escapes a Nazi roundup and plots to flee occupied France.
The year is 1942. Twelve-year-old Miriam Schrieber and her parents live in Paris, having fled Berlin after Kristallnacht in 1938. But the Nazis invaded France two years later, and Miri remains haunted by the memories of witnessing her neighbor Monsieur Rosenbaum being taken away. Now, the gendarmes are rounding up all the Jews in her neighborhood and putting them on buses bound for the Velodrome d’Hiver, where they’ll await an unknown fate. Miri’s parents are missing when the roundup takes place, and Madame Rosenbaum urges Miri to escape with Nora, her toddler daughter. The girls flee and are saved by a Catholic nun, who arranges to send Miri to a convent school in Chenonceaux. The village fortunately borders Vichy France, offering an escape route to Zurich, where Madame Rosenbaum’s cousin lives. Nora is placed with a Catholic family, and Miri does her best to fit in with the other students. A desperate moment leads Miri to channel her fear into the courage required to help refugees seek safety across the border, while also plotting her own escape with Nora. This poignant story moves quickly but takes care to consider with sensitivity the excruciating choices Miri must make at every turn as she’s torn between choosing safety and honoring her heritage and her convictions.
A gripping, humane tale that examines what war demands of children and what it costs them. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780735228566
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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