Narrator 11-year-old Celli lives in segregated Macon, Georgia, with her mother and brother; her father left years earlier. Celli also considers Sophie, an outspoken African-American woman who cooks and cleans for them, to be a part of the family. In 1961, when Celli's mother leaves for a month, Sophie takes care of the children. One evening she takes Celli to a church meeting where the congregation is planning a visit from the Freedom Riders. The resulting civil-rights demonstration lands Sophie in jail and pushes Celli into helping a man pursued by the Klan. Celli also meets, for the first time, her Ohio grandmother who has come with the Freedom Riders. The girl is shocked that her grandmother is African-American and even more shocked to learn that this means her light-skinned father was, too. Celli's rather too-quick adjustment to these surprises can only be explained by her relationship with Sophie and for all its drama, the story falls short of engaging the reader emotionally. The well-intentioned exploration of civil rights and racial identity tends to override the development of the characters, who remain largely one-dimensional, while strained elements of magical realism reinforce the reader's distance. Celli opens her story by describing angels that only she sees, as "Three naked black girls with creamy white wings, throwing stones on my hopscotch board." The angels appear most days, eating angel food, picking blossoms, and, near the end, playing poker on the garage roof. Murphy's strong lyrical writing was used to far better effect in her first novel, Night Flying (2000), where the magical realism was well integrated into the story. Here she has tackled tough issues in too-little depth, with symbolism that obscures rather than enlightens. Still, the story itself is a good one and has its own rewards. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32776-5
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
Taking a page from Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (1990), Kehret (I’m Not Who You Think I Am, p. 223, etc.) pens a similar story of a girl who goes to sea. Determined not to be separated from her seriously ill mother, Emma, 12, embarks on a plan that results in the adventure of a lifetime. Sent to live with Aunt Martha and her arrogant son, Odolf, Emma carefully plots her escape. Disguising herself in her cousin’s used clothes, she sneaks out while the household slumbers and stows away on what she believes to be a ship carrying her parents from England to the warmer climate of France. Instead, the ship is the evil, ill-fated Black Lightning, under the command of the notorious Captain Beacon. Emma finds herself sharing quarters with a crew of filthy, surly, dangerous men. When a fierce storm swamps the ship, Emma desperately seizes her chance to escape, drifting for several days and nights aboard a hatch cover and finally carried to land somewhere on the coast of Africa. Hungry, thirsty, and alone, Emma faces the daunting prospect of slow starvation, but survives due to a relationship she builds with a band of chimpanzees. This page-turning adventure story shows evidence of solid research and experienced plotting—the pacing is breathless. Kehret paints a starkly realistic portrait, complete with sounds and smells of the difficult and unpleasant life aboard ship. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-03416-2
Page Count: 138
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
PLB 0-531-33140-7 Ketcham’s first book is based on an allegedly true story of a childhood incident in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. It starts with a couple of pages regaling the Bach home and all the Johanns in the family, who made their fame through music. After his father’s death, Johann Sebastian goes to live with his brother, Johann Christoph, where he boasts that he is the best organist in the world. Johann Christoph contradicts him: “Old Adam Reincken is the best.” So Johann Sebastian sets out to hear the master himself. In fact, he is humbled to tears, but there is hope that he will be the world’s best organist one day. Johann Sebastian emerges as little more than a brat, Reincken as more of a suggestion than a character. Bush’s illustrations are most transporting when offering details of the landscape, but his protagonist is too impish to give the story much authority. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30140-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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