Matt Pin’s story, told in first-person verse, opens with the evacuation of refugees near the end of the Vietnam War. Afterward Matt, an Amerasian, is adopted by a loving American family. Two years later, he remains haunted by a past in which his soldier father abandoned him, his mother gave him up and his brother was maimed before his eyes. He suffers deeply from prejudice when he tries out for the school baseball team and from his misunderstanding of both his biological and adoptive families’ motives. Through the efforts of two veterans, Matt begins to understand that his mother gave him away because she loved him, not because he was culpable in the crippling of his brother. In recognizing the analogous suffering endured by others touched by the war, Matt begins to resolve the conflicts of his spirit. Graceful symmetries between brother and brother, father and son, past and present, guilt and forgiveness shed light on the era and the individual. The verse form carries highly charged emotions and heavy content with elegiac simplicity. A memorable debut. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-545-08092-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2009
The author of Alias Madame Doubtfire (1987) and, more recently, Step by Wicked Step (1996) mines a darker vein with this study in malevolence. Exploring the countryside around the elegant old hotel her father is now managing, Natalie first sees Tulip standing in a field holding a kitten; later in school Natalie makes overtures of friendship, not realizing until too late that Tulip is a social outcast and perennial discipline problem as well. Enthralled by Tulip's fearlessly antisocial behavior, Natalie surrenders her will and common sense, playing along in a succession of pranks, cleverly subtle harassment, and quiet, mean games with hair-raising names—Rats in a Firestorm or Road of Bones. In Fine's view, Tulip is to be pitied as much as feared, for her twisted, uncontrolled nature has been molded by an abusive father—but all of the adults in the story come in for a share of the blame, too, aware of Tulip's situation but, beyond handwringing, allowing it to continue. After a game of Wild Nights ends in arson, Natalie finds herself abruptly free of Tulip's spell and breaks off the friendship. Tulip retaliates, and on Christmas Eve, the hotel goes up in flames. Fine expresses with canny precision her protagonist's ambivalence and soul- searching, challenging readers to see how fascinating such repellent behavior can be. A moving, complex story. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-316-28325-8
Page Count: 149
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1997
Bacon's Rebellion, which took place in Jamestown in 1676, sowed the seeds of the American Revolution. At issue was the right of plantation owners to raise their own army to defend themselves against Indian attacks; some wanted to sever ties with England all together. Robert Bradford, 14, finds himself in the middle of the fray after Susquehannocks murder his family and torch their homestead; Robert is further inflamed by his belief that his blood brother, Naokan, took part in the raid. Vowing revenge, he joins Nathaniel Bacon's rebel army, which is bent on killing every Indian in Virginia. When Robert sees war up close and learns that Naokan took no part in the massacre, he rethinks his position, realizing that rigid fanaticism does not lead to just solutions. There's plenty of action, but the heart of the book is Robert's inner struggle to find a truth that reflects everything he knows, without contradictions. His voice occasionally sounds too mature for his years, but Harrah's portrayal of the boy's conflicted feelings is authentic. A thoughtful and well-written novel about a little-known chapter in US history. (Fiction. 10- 14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-689-80968-9
Page Count: 137
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
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