Alas, not tight enough to resonate deeply.
Rachel Paskar, now 16 in 1905 San Francisco, begins life anew, a refugee with her older sister, brother-in-law, and Menahem, a young boy with whom they escaped from the 1903 Kishinev, Russia, pogrom (Rachel’s Secret, 2012).
It is a tough life made more complicated by new customs and language. Intertwined with Rachel’s story is that of Sergei, her special friend in Russia, now escaping from a prison sentence in Siberia for fighting the czarist government. Readers explore San Francisco as Rachel and her family learn their way around and begin to make a life. After a long day’s work as a maid, Rachel studies English in a newcomer’s school and does well. She is ambitious, and perhaps as a character she is too nice, almost without faults. Readers will be confident that given time, she will succeed—but not before surviving the ’quake-fire of 1906. The stylistic advantage of having separate chapters about two protagonists, Rachel and Sergei, allows time to pass without detailing what has occurred between events. An added character based on the Jewish-American socialist Anna Strunsky encourages Rachel in her ambition to become a writer but is tangential to the story and disappears from it, one of a number of extraneous details that lessen tension and interfere with what is basically a character study.
Alas, not tight enough to resonate deeply. (historical note, glossary) (Historical fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-927583-42-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Second Story Press
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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