In this expansion of a short story first published in Jane Yolen's Camelot (1995, not reviewed), Springer (Secret Star, 1997, etc.) sees Arthur's son more as a tragic hero than a villain, a teenager engaged in a desperate struggle to wiggle out from beneath the doom cast upon him before his birth. Raised in seclusion and ignorance, far from Camelot, Mordred is aghast when he learns that he is both the son and nephew of King Arthur, who had tried to have him drowned as an infant. Though he grows into young knighthood with little regard for his own courage or strength, in fact he holds up well under the awful weight of his foreknowledge; readers will have no trouble comprehending both his stubborn wish to be himself rather than a tool of destiny, and his hatred of and eventual love for his flawed but great-hearted father. After inadvertently causing the death of his only friend, Mordred gives up the fight against fate, ridding himself of doubt and soul-searching by ridding himself of his soul. Springer places characters and internal conflicts, as strongly drawn as those found in Donna Jo Napoli's powerfully re-envisioned folk tales, into a world lit by flashes of wonder and humor, where politics and magic are brutal, inexorable forces. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: April 13, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-12143-9
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Reading like a long term paper, this dry, abstract recitation of teams and players brings neither the game nor the people who played and are playing it to life. McKissack (with Patricia C. McKissack, Black Diamond, 1994, not reviewed, etc.) opens with a chapter on basketball’s invention and original rules, closes with a look at women’s basketball, and in between chronicles the growth of amateur, college, and pro ball, adding clipped quotes, technical observations about changing styles of play and vague comments about how players black and white respected each other. The information is evidently drawn entirely from previously published books and interviews. A modest selection of black-and-white photographs give faces to some of the many names the author drops, but readers won’t find much more about individual players beyond an occasional biographical or statistical tidbit. McKissack frequently points to parallels in the history of African Americans in basketball and in baseball, but this account comes off as sketchy and unfocused compared to Black Diamond. (glossary, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-48712-4
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A wry sequel to The Silent Treatment (1988): here, summer jobs put high-school seniors Ricky and Nate through a mystery from the past, as well as through some timeless rites of passage. Having to clean toilets and listen to gloomy, sex-obsessed Norman the Foreman seems like a fair exchange for a free stay at Quiver Lake resort, especially with all the college women around; Nate moves into hot (and eventually successful) pursuit of a Berkeley student, but Ricky is more inclined to watch from a distance. Meanwhile, what appear to be new but genuine artifacts of the long-integrated Miwok tribe begin to turn up, and Ricky almost loses his life in a primitive deer trap. Is there still a Miwok alive in the wild? Or, as someone suggests, is it the spirit of a young Miwok who never completed his manhood ritual and is unable to find the Aimah, an anthropomorphic rock formation? Carkeet's characters are portrayed sympathetically but broadly enough to keep the story light. The climax is big and dramatic: Ricky wakes one morning to find that the whole lake has suddenly drained away, exposing not only a field of slick mud but the Aimah, with piles of warm ashes at its crotch and armpits. There's no ghost to be seen, but readers can draw their own conclusions. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1991
ISBN: 0-06-022453-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1991
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