A TIME TOO SWIFT

by Margaret Poynter ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1990

Marjorie, 15, comes of age in a tale full of WW II detail and nostalgia. She has made friends with a Marine and is dreaming of romantic idylls when Pearl Harbor is attacked. Her friend is called up; another is 4-F; her brother enlists. Marjorie's girlfriends have other problems: one has a brother killed; another, Japanese, is relocated with her family. A plethora of small details--food, hair-styles, the smell of uniforms--are evocative, but may mean little to young readers; some are mildly amiss--young people at home organize immediately after the attack to ""sell defense stamps, collect pots and pans and toothpaste tubes. . .,"" efforts that actually came later. Still, there is much here that young people can identify with in Marjorie's emotional growth as she discovers the worth of her 4-F friend and in her empathy for others, her yearnings and fantasies. Marjorie's mother grows more self-reliant on taking a war job, while both working-class parents are refreshingly moral; the manners and mores of the time, when a boy might insist on meeting a girl's parents, will be an eye-opener to today's young.

Pub Date: March 1, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990

Categories: CHILDREN'S