A hearty look at city girl making a new home on the range. This sequel begins in 1947 where Love You, Soldier (1991) left off. Katie and her widowed mother arrive in Texas from New York City to begin new lives with Sam Gold, a veteran unscathed by the war that claimed Katie's father four years earlier. In the pages of the diary are the ups and downs of a young girl's adjustment to her stepfather, new home, new school, and, just as she is beginning to settle in, the wrenching news that her mother is pregnant. Katie plans to run away to New York City with a classmate and nearly succeeds before being intercepted, to her mingled relief and fury. Hest has dealt with the stepparent-and-new-baby theme in Where in the World Is the Perfect Family? (1989); the immediacy of the diary format makes her latest effort even more effective. The pages are decorated with ``Katie's'' childish drawings and Lamut's trompe l'oeil illustrations of b&w snapshots slipped into the leaves. Today's 11-year-olds may find Katie unsophisticated, but she is totally convincing in the '40s setting. The ending, as she falls head-over-heels in love with her twin baby brothers and accepts Sam's wish to adopt her, further illustrates the theme of the first book: love is risky, but worth it. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-56402-474-1
Page Count: 75
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This standout novella lustrously portrays Ana Rosa and the rich simplicity of her family’s daily life in the Dominican Republic. The linked vignettes and elegant prose vitalize the merengue music, colorful houses, as well as the people’s poverty and the tyranny of the government. Each chapter begins with one of Ana Rosa’s lovely rhythmic verses. A poet and writer at age 12, she steals bits of paper to record everything she sees, hears, and imagines. Ana Rosa’s family is very close by necessity, but it is her beloved brother Guario who has the job that supports them. As the novella proceeds, dark shadows begin to slink through the gentle days. We learn that Ana Rosa’s father drinks too much rum and Coke, especially on Sundays, when he becomes a lurching spectacle. Then an official informs the villagers that to build a hotel, the government has sold the land on which their families have lived for generations. The villagers band together, Ana Rosa writes an article, and her brother Guario becomes their passionate leader. But when the day of the standoff arrives, the villager’s words and rocks are nothing against the guardia’s guns and bulldozers. The heartbreaking result is Guario’s death. Without diluting the sorrow, Joseph (Fly, Bessie, Fly, 1998, etc.) illustrates the good arising from the tragedy as the government cancels the hotel project and Ana Rosa begins writing the life of her brother. This is an achingly beautiful story that will awaken profound emotions in the reader. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-028232-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
In 1948 the unorthodox Miss Agnes arrives to teach the children of an Athabascan Indian Village in remote Alaska. Ten-year-old Fred (Fredrika) matter-of-factly narrates this story of how a teacher transformed the school. Miss Agnes’s one-room schoolhouse is a progressive classroom, where the old textbooks are stored away first thing upon her arrival. The children learn to read using handmade books that are about their own village and lives: winter trapping camps, tanning moose hides, fishing, and curing the catch, etc. Math is a lesson on how not to get cheated when selling animal pelts. These young geographers learn about the world on a huge map that covers one whole schoolhouse wall. Fred is pitch-perfect in her observations of the village residents. “Little Pete made a picture of his dad’s trapline cabin . . . He was proud of that picture, I could tell, because he kept making fun of it.” Hill (Winter Camp, 1993, etc.) creates a community of realistically unique adults and children that is rich in the detail of their daily lives. Big Pete is as small and scrappy, as his son Little Pete is huge, gentle, and kind. Fred’s 12-year-old deaf sister, Bokko, has her father’s smile and has never gone to school until Miss Agnes. Charlie-Boy is so physically adept at age 6 that he is the best runner, thrower, and catcher of all the children. These are just a few of the residents in this rural community. The school year is not without tension. Will Bokko continue in school? Will Mama stay angry with Miss Agnes? And most important, who will be their teacher after Miss Agnes leaves? A quiet, yet satisfying account. (Fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-82933-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
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