The book might be effective in a classroom setting; it’s likely to be confusing unmediated
An Israeli settlement in the occupied territories forms the thinly disguised setting of a tale inappropriately introduced with an epigraph from the Gospels.
Thirteen-year-old Joshua lives in Amarias with his mother and despised stepfather, Liev. He hates Amarias, where his once-joyful mother covers her hair and defers to Liev, but he doesn’t much think about The Wall, the checkpoints and the soldiers he’s told protect him from “the people who live on the other side.” Joshua finds a tunnel that takes him under The Wall, where he’s rescued by a girl. Joshua’s new social consciousness—worry for the girl and wondering how his observations correspond to what he’s been told—is tangled up in his consistently degrading relationship with Liev. Every time Joshua breaks his frustrated passivity in order to help the girl and her family, he worsens the situation for them. Despite the novel’s subtitle, this is wholly realistic fiction detailing a boy’s coming-of-age in a real-life political situation. Unfortunately, in the absence of proper nouns or other clues (Israelis and Palestinians distinguished by “my language” and “harsh, guttural words I can’t understand”; “people like me” and “everyone else”; “us” and “the people who used to live there”), the tale lacks context; without knowledge of the setting, it reads like a dystopian novel inexplicably featuring “American TV” and a “Japanese sedan.”
The book might be effective in a classroom setting; it’s likely to be confusing unmediated . (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8027-3492-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Basing her novel on a one-page story written by an 11-year-old child shortly before her death from leukemia, Bennett (Life in the Fat Lane, 1998, etc.) creates a tale of courage personified. A herd of miniature zebras appears before Becky Zaslow on the day she is diagnosed with childhood cancer—leukemia. During times of painful treatment, the zebras take Becky away to Africa and the Serengeti where they fight off tough predators, cross the treacherous crocodile-filled Mara River, and tell tales about Zink, a mythological polka-dotted zebra. Becky’s secret journal outlines the course of each treatment and is interspersed with the tale of these playful zebras; they help her to remain courageous despite her fears. The zebras, not medical professionals, prepare Becky for death when her bone marrow transplant fails and she succumbs to a respiratory infection. As one of the zebras, Ice Z, tells her, “True courage is admitting we’re afraid and fighting the predators anyway.” After her death, Becky, as Zink, joins the zebra herd. With three pages of acknowledgments and a lengthy afterword, readers may gain more than they need to know about the true aspects of this poignant story, but the embellishments don’t interfere with the raw emotions explored, or the power of Becky’s journey as she learns to run with the herd. (glossary) (Fiction 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-32669-6
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Raisa's sister, Henda, has earned enough money to send for Raisa to join her in the goldineh medina of America. When Raisa arrives in 1910 New York from her Polish shtetl, she finds Henda missing. Responsible for supporting both herself and a newly orphaned toddler, Raisa finds a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Raisa's friends, described in language rich with the cadences of Yiddish, each have jealousies, loves and flaws; they're not mere trajectories toward tragedy. But tragedy does strike, with the real-life factory fire that killed 146 workers. Vivid description of the deaths—of workers trapped on higher floors or leaping from windows to choose a faster death—unavoidably invites comparisons with another, more recent tragedy. The comparison serves the novel well; when the prose isn't strong enough for sufficient horror, visceral memories of 9/11 will do the trick (at least for those readers old enough to remember). After some tear-jerking, the happy conclusion comes too suddenly—shockingly so. The journey, however, is satisfying enough on its own. (Historical fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-670-01245-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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