This middle volume doesn’t really set up the (nearly) explosive climax to come but is replete with chases and escapes.
Young actors/spies find themselves on a new mission when the death of Queen Elizabeth sparks a Catholic plot to assassinate King James as historical characters from William Shakespeare to Francis Bacon trot into and out of view.
In one plotline, said Catholic conspirators work to recruit amnesiac archer Richard Fletcher to their cause, while in another, Richard’s thespian sister, Alice (disguised as “Adam” and believing since the previous episode that her brother is dead), is involved in a scheme of spymaster Robert Cecil’s to trick an imprisoned priest into revealing his allies. Ultimately the conspiracy is exposed—but not before events bring Richard, Alice, her friend Tom, royal political pawn Arbella Stuart, and Shakespeare himself (hard at work on Othello) together as captives who then escape in a nighttime rumpus through the Forest of Arden. Though light on period detail and also on explicit violence, the tale does move along smartly to a happy ending (for Cecil and King James anyway) and a joyful reunion for Alice and Richard. Woolf gives the all-white cast’s female characters at least minor roles in effecting their rescues, an arguably anachronistic touch, and depicts the aforementioned priest as a rousingly scary, vicious brute, which is totally in keeping with Protestant attitudes of the times. While American audiences will probably not feel the historical tensions between early-17th-century Protestants and Catholics as keenly as the book’s original English audience might, the book is nevertheless a fast-moving adventure.
This middle volume doesn’t really set up the (nearly) explosive climax to come but is replete with chases and escapes. (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-912006-95-3
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Salariya
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This weave of perceptive, well-told tales wears its agenda with unusual grace.
Two young people of different generations get profound lessons in the tragic, enduring legacy of war.
Raised on the thrilling yarns of his great-grandpa Jacob and obsessed with both World War II and first-person–shooter video games, Trevor is eager to join the 93-year-old vet when he is invited to revisit the French town his unit had helped to liberate. In alternating chapters, the overseas trip retraces the parallel journeys of two young people—Trevor, 12, and Jacob, in 1944, just five years older—with similarly idealized visions of what war is like as they travel both then and now from Fort Benning to Omaha Beach and then through Normandy. Jacob’s wartime experiences are an absorbing whirl of hard fighting, sudden death, and courageous acts spurred by necessity…but the modern trip turns suspenseful too, as mysterious stalkers leave unsettling tokens and a series of hostile online posts that hint that Jacob doesn’t have just German blood on his hands. Korman acknowledges the widely held view of World War II as a just war but makes his own sympathies plain by repeatedly pointing to the unavoidable price of conflict: “Wars may have winning sides, but everybody loses.” Readers anticipating a heavy-handed moral will appreciate that Trevor arrives at a refreshingly realistic appreciation of video games’ pleasures and limitations. As his dad puts it: “War makes a better video game….But if you’re looking for a way to live, I’ll take peace every time.”
This weave of perceptive, well-told tales wears its agenda with unusual grace. (Fiction/historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-29020-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Solid work, featuring a strong-minded protagonist bent on doing the best he can with what he’s been given.
Abolitionists square off against slave catchers in this well-crafted debut, complicating the schemes of a stranded young sailor.
Kidnapped off the streets of New Bedford by his harsh half-brother, held until his whaler had departed and then forced to work in a local cotton mill, Lucky Valera, a 14-year-old orphan of Cape Verdean descent, finds his efforts to escape stymied at every turn. His attachments to his coworker and new friend Daniel, a fugitive slave, and Emmeline, activist daughter of a Quaker abolitionist, involve him in plans to protect the large number of fugitives in town from approaching slave catchers. Along with a few references to “darkies” and “dark devils” that evoke the era’s negative racial attitudes, Russell folds in enough historical detail to establish a sense of setting. Without burdening the tale with info dumps, she lays out a basic view of the conflict between the recently passed Fugitive Slave Act and the moral stance of those who opposed it. The author also provides ample tests of character for Lucky and Daniel alike as she speeds her tale to a climactic escape and happy resolution after Lucky’s half-sib treacherously tries to collect a reward for both lads and is himself briefly seized.
Solid work, featuring a strong-minded protagonist bent on doing the best he can with what he’s been given. (afterword, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56145-597-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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