Côté’s illustrations catch the haunting tone of Tennyson’s Arthurian lyric, while adding several original touches. Weaving “a magic web of colours gay,” the Lady lives in happy isolation in a tower until she catches a glimpse of Lancelot—activating a curse that sends her lifeless body drifting downriver to Camelot. In the sketchy, modernist art, medieval passersby mix with more contemporary ones on the road below Shalott, traveling toward Camelot’s high-rise skyline by horse or automobile. And Lancelot cuts a stylish figure, wearing a long duster rather than armor, and goggles pushed up on a plumed hat. Côté also adds a brighter ending: After Lancelot’s closing observation that, even in death, “she has a lovely face,” a small figure rises on butterfly wings over the city. A classic poem, in an unconventional but sensitive and suitable setting. Includes long notes on poem and illustrator. (Poetry. 10-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-55337-874-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
In this rich, insightful memoir, Molnar offers a child’s-eye view of life in Romania in the late 1950s. Known as Eva Zimmerman then, she lived in a crowded but loving Bucharest home that included her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. They are a lively, eccentric bunch brought vividly to life in a simple first-person, present-tense narration. Especially endearing is Eva’s relationship with her grandfather, who encourages her to embrace her Jewish heritage. Her cinematographer father, a survivor of several concentration camps who lost his parents to the Holocaust, is haunted by his experiences. Eva learns from her grandmother the complicity of Romania’s World War II fascist regime in the murder of thousands of Jews. With anti-Semitism still pervasive in Communist Romania, Eva keeps her Jewish identity secret from classmates when she begins school. The author vividly depicts the harsh realities of life under fascist rule: scarcity of food and housing, ideological indoctrination in school and constant fear of the Securitate, the secret police who are always watching and listening. Black-and-white family photographs illustrate this poignant, memorable memoir. (Memoir. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-374-31840-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
The highs and lows of first love are chronicled in various poetic forms. Two unnamed narrators, a boy and a girl, speak in alternating voices about the course of a relationship from crush to breakup. At the bottom of each page, the authors note which form of poetry was used to tell that particular point in the story. Some of the forms, such as the sonnet and terza rima, will be familiar to teen poetry aficionados. Others—the tanka and Vietnamese luc bat, for example—invite discussion of unfamiliar forms. It is unlikely than anyone other than teens already interested in poetry will pick this up voluntarily, even teens who are fans of verse authors. This book’s value may come in its potential for classroom use: For teachers looking for ways to get high-school students to read and relate to poetry and learn its forms this is a top choice. The teen voices are honest and will ring true for any teen who’s ever had a crush, been mortified by his or her parents or broken off a relationship with the classic “it’s not you, it's me.” (Poetry. 11-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59078-587-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
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