No disguise can mask P.K. Pinkerton’s stout heart and steely resolve in Lawrence’s third (and mighty fine) Wild West...
Twelve-year-old half-Lakota “double-orphan” detective P.K. Pinkerton heads to Carson City in the third of the disarming Western Mysteries series.
The year is 1862, and news of P.K.’s private-eye prowess has spread through the Nevada Territory. A high-class Virginia City courtesan hires the detective to spy on her possibly unfaithful fiance, the very same Poker Face Jace who is P.K.’s beloved mentor. P.K. has what he calls a “Thorn,” difficulty showing or reading emotion; Jace has taught his protégé to read people’s “tells,” and not just around the poker table. As P.K. shadows Jace in Carson City, he thinks “Blind Widow Woman” will be his best disguise ever—until his “sock bosom” migrates north. (P.K.’s true gender is deliberately left iffy until the end.) Carson City is alive with gamblers and guns, drinkers and desperados…even a young Sam Clemens. The silver mines are humming, the railroad’s coming, and the colorful legislature wrangles the law. P.K.—the best kind of hero—navigates it all with unblinking acceptance of the salty characters he meets, straight-shooting honesty and impressive investigative work. The young detective’s dryly hilarious first-person accounts keep the story at a gallop.
No disguise can mask P.K. Pinkerton’s stout heart and steely resolve in Lawrence’s third (and mighty fine) Wild West adventure. (maps) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25635-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
PROFILES
An outstanding new edition of this popular modern classic (Newbery Award, 1961), with an introduction by Zena Sutherland and...
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0-395-53680-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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