Great Aunt Lucy recalls the time just before the Civil War when as slaves she and her older brother, Albert, helped others escape by using the patterns in quilts to send secret messages. Albert was a blacksmith who was loaned to other plantations. After one such trip, he brought home a sack of quilts, which, he explained, held secret codes—the “monkey wrench” signaled to gather tools for the trip, “tumbling blocks” that it’s time to escape. When Albert gave the signal, ten-year-old Lucy would risk her life to help by hanging the appropriate quilt over the field fence for others to see. When Albert was badly beaten after being caught one night without a pass, he decided he had to leave, but couldn’t take Lucy because her lame leg would slow them down. Lucy survives the Civil War, working as a laundress and volunteering as a teacher and always wondering about her brother. Many years later, a letter arrives from Albert; he has married, lives in Canada, and is coming to visit. Enclosed is the piece of quilt that Lucy had given him when he left. While the basic story is powerful and touching, the vagueness of the time period is problematic. Dramatic double-paged, impressionistic paintings lack details that would clear up the confusion since they illustrate neither period dress, furnishings, nor style. Due to the mature nature of the material and one particularly disturbing spread of Albert being whipped by the overseer, this is a book for older children. (glossary, afterword) (Picture book. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 30, 2001
ISBN: 1-58430-021-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
Despite its lackluster execution, this story’s simple premise and basic vocabulary make it suitable for younger readers...
From the author of the Animorphs series comes this earnest novel in verse about an orphaned Sudanese war refugee with a passion for cows, who has resettled in Minnesota with relatives.
Arriving in winter, Kek spots a cow that reminds him of his father’s herd, a familiar sight in an alien world. Later he returns with Hannah, a friendly foster child, and talks the cow’s owner into hiring him to look after it. When the owner plans to sell the cow, Kek becomes despondent. Full of wide-eyed amazement and unalloyed enthusiasm for all things American, Kek is a generic—bordering on insulting—stereotype. His tribe, culture and language are never identified; personal details, such as appearance and age, are vague or omitted. Lacking the quirks and foibles that bring characters to life, Kek seems more a composite of traits designed to instruct readers than an engaging individual in his own right.
Despite its lackluster execution, this story’s simple premise and basic vocabulary make it suitable for younger readers interested in the plight of war refugees. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-312-36765-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
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