Myers overlays a melancholy love story on top of the Salem Witch Trials. Drucilla and Gabe, unrelated orphans raised as siblings, have been separated for the first time in their lives. Gabe is taken in as servant to Joseph Putnam, while Drucilla goes to the home of Joseph’s enemy and kinsman, Thomas Putnam. Mistress Putnam seems affectionate to Drucilla, asking to be called “mother.” Nevertheless, Drucilla senses something is wrong, as her mood swings lead to frequent accusations of evil against servants, the minister and other villagers. Dragged along with the machinations of Mistress Putnam and her daughter Ann, Drucilla soon finds herself smack in the middle of the hysterical accusations of the trials. It’s easier for Drucilla to go along with the accusations than to fight them, despite her own terribly contemporary outlook which recognizes “the power of suggestion,” mob mentality and guilt-induced hysteria. Try Donna Jo Napoli’s Breath (2003) for a far less anachronistic view of hysteria and witchcraft; Drucilla and Gabe are too modern for this tale. Nevertheless, it’s a moodily readable take on a story that continues to fascinate. (Historical fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8027-9820-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
From England’s Children’s Laureate, a searing WWI-era tale of a close extended family repeatedly struck by adversity and injustice. On vigil in the trenches, 17-year-old Thomas Peaceful looks back at a childhood marked by guilt over his father’s death, anger at the shabby treatment his strong-minded mother receives from the local squire and others—and deep devotion to her, to his brain-damaged brother Big Joe, and especially to his other older brother Charlie, whom he has followed into the army by lying about his age. Weaving telling incidents together, Morpurgo surrounds the Peacefuls with mean-spirited people at home, and devastating wartime experiences on the front, ultimately setting readers up for a final travesty following Charlie’s refusal of an order to abandon his badly wounded brother. Themes and small-town class issues here may find some resonance on this side of the pond, but the particular cultural and historical context will distance the story from American readers—particularly as the pace is deliberate, and the author’s hints about where it’s all heading are too rare and subtle to create much suspense. (Fiction. 11-13, adult)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63648-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2004
Miah’s melodramatic death overshadows a tale as rich in social and personal insight as any of Woodson’s previous books.
In a meditative interracial love story with a wrenching climactic twist, Woodson (The House You Pass on the Way, 1997, etc.) offers an appealing pair of teenagers and plenty of intellectual grist, before ending her story with a senseless act of violence.
Jeremiah and Elisha bond from the moment they collide in the hall of their Manhattan prep school: He’s the only child of celebrity parents; she’s the youngest by ten years in a large family. Not only sharply sensitive to the reactions of those around them, Ellie and Miah also discover depths and complexities in their own intense feelings that connect clearly to their experiences, their social environment, and their own characters. In quiet conversations and encounters, Woodson perceptively explores varieties of love, trust, and friendship, as she develops well-articulated histories for both families. Suddenly Miah, forgetting his father’s warning never to be seen running in a white neighborhood, exuberantly dashes into a park and is shot down by police. The parting thought that, willy-nilly, time moves on will be a colder comfort for stunned readers than it evidently is for Ellie.
Miah’s melodramatic death overshadows a tale as rich in social and personal insight as any of Woodson’s previous books. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-23112-9
Page Count: 181
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998
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