Frances, a white fifth-grader who calls herself Figgrotten, carries a heavy burden of isolation and loneliness that she is unwilling to recognize.
Deeply involved in nature, Figgrotten likes nothing better than spending a day on the rocky hill behind her house, immersed in the outside world. She sleeps with her window open, and her bedroom is packed with her finds: tree branches, birds’ nests, and assorted other reminders of nature. Her deep friendship with Alvin, the richly intuitive, elderly driver of her school bus, provides just enough emotional support to sustain her. But she’s found effective ways to isolate herself: she dresses oddly, interacts hardly at all with her classmates, and keeps herself tightly reined in from saying too much in school, although her teacher endeavors to ease her way. Like a couple of others in her class, quiet Fiona, with a voice “like a papery whisper,” and new boy James, who hides by burying his face in books, Figgrotten remains safe but alone in a sharply circumscribed orbit. With her relationship with her older sister, Christinia, crumbling, followed by the death of Alvin, Figgrotten’s world falls apart. It’s only after she begins to bridge the gap between herself and the affectingly evoked Fiona, Christinia, and eventually even James, that she finds solace.
A moving depiction of unique characters, grief, and the benevolent power of forgiveness. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-2061-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s a monster in Sidwell, Massachusetts, that can only be seen at night or, as Twig reveals, if passersby are near her house.
It’s her older brother, James, born with wings just like every male in the Fowler line for the last 200 years. They were cursed by the Witch of Sidwell, left brokenhearted by their forebear Lowell Fowler. Twig and James are tired of the secret and self-imposed isolation. Lonely Twig narrates, bringing the small town and its characters to life, intertwining events present and past, and describing the effects of the spell on her fractured family’s daily life. Longing for some normalcy and companionship, she befriends new-neighbor Julia while James falls in love with Julia’s sister, Agate—only to learn they are descendants of the Witch. James and Agate seem as star-crossed as their ancestors, especially when the townspeople attribute a spate of petty thefts and graffiti protesting the development of the woods to the monster and launch a hunt. The mix of romance and magic is irresistible and the tension, compelling. With the help of friends and through a series of self-realizations and discoveries, Twig grows more self-assured. She is certain she knows how to change the curse. In so doing, Twig not only changes James’ fate, but her own, for the first time feeling the fullness of family, friends and hope for the future.
Enchanting. (Magical realism. 9-12)Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-38958-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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