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
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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Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch.
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Basketball-playing twins find challenges to their relationship on and off the court as they cope with changes in their lives.
Josh Bell and his twin, Jordan, aka JB, are stars of their school basketball team. They are also successful students, since their educator mother will stand for nothing else. As the two middle schoolers move to a successful season, readers can see their differences despite the sibling connection. After all, Josh has dreadlocks and is quiet on court, and JB is bald and a trash talker. Their love of the sport comes from their father, who had also excelled in the game, though his championship was achieved overseas. Now, however, he does not have a job and seems to have health problems the parents do not fully divulge to the boys. The twins experience their first major rift when JB is attracted to a new girl in their school, and Josh finds himself without his brother. This novel in verse is rich in character and relationships. Most interesting is the family dynamic that informs so much of the narrative, which always reveals, never tells. While Josh relates the story, readers get a full picture of major and minor players. The basketball action provides energy and rhythm for a moving story.
Poet Alexander deftly reveals the power of the format to pack an emotional punch. (Verse fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-10771-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY | CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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