An exquisite, memorable story about new beginnings and the quest to belong.
A historical novel in verse that glides smoothly and rises with hope.
Set in 1947 during the tumultuous days of the Partition, this is the story of 12-year-old Raj, a Hindu boy who loves flying kites with Nana, his grandfather, and Iqbal, his Muslim best friend. But Raj’s world is soon fractured by a line drawn on a map. Readers are immersed in rich descriptions of food as Amma prepares kaju mithai, fragrant with cashews and cardamom, and measures spices for sweet mango pickle. The boys cement their friendship with a Diwali treat of almond and pistachio varo; at Eid al-Fitr, they share a bowl of sheer khurma. Food evokes deeper introspection about home in the face of the losses that keep piling up and serves as a reminder that joy is quadrupled when shared. The tension rises while politically aware Raj struggles to make sense of the changes around him, and the story moves from Hyderabad in Sindh to Bombay. The difficulties are undercut with glimmers of optimism and humanity, and family and friendship form the backbone of the story, which opens with Raj’s exhilaration about kites—lions in the sky—and the upcoming Kite Festival. Ultimately this is a tale about being lion-hearted, soaring after falling many times, and still reaching for the sky. It’s also about lines that divide, that cut across hearts and countries, and that are seared into memories.
An exquisite, memorable story about new beginnings and the quest to belong. (author’s note, glossary) (Verse historical fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9780063284487
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
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