Recommend this to sentimental youngsters or as a supplemental text.
During the American Revolution, Sophia becomes a spy for the patriots, but will she have the courage to relay vital information?
Despite the threatening beginning—Sophia witnesses Nathan Hale’s hanging—readers never doubt Sophia’s success because she shares her story in retrospect, lessening the tension. Instead, her “war” is internal: The man she ultimately exposes is John André, a British officer she adores. Descriptions of the British occupation of New York City and the horrific conditions for prisoners of war are shocking. Children will be morally outraged on Sophia’s behalf when her rebel brother dies in prison. Thus, they may find it difficult to empathize with Sophia’s passion for André, and all but the most romantically inclined may find Part One: 1776 (September 1776-January 1777), during which 12-year-old Sophia’s love blooms, slow-moving. Although Sophia feels betrayed when André does not help her brother and later, when at age 15 she begins to spy on André, is incensed that he does not recognize her, her feelings remain conflicted. Part Two: 1780 focuses on these experiences. The action picks up when Sophia travels north alone in an effort to thwart André’s collusion with Benedict Arnold. However, while readers will appreciate Sophia’s reluctance to condemn anyone to death, her melodramatic wavering over André becomes tiresome.
Recommend this to sentimental youngsters or as a supplemental text. (glossary of 18th-century words, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-1441-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
A winningly authentic, realistic and heartwarming family drama.
A family crisis pushes a 12-year-old wannabe cowboy living outside Chicago in 1953 to resort to bullying and damaging pranks.
Since his baby sister’s birth, Tommy’s normally moody mother’s been like a “sky full of dark clouds.” When his older sister’s seriously burned, Tommy’s left to cope with her daily newspaper route, his increasingly abusive mother, his overwhelmed father and his younger sisters. Tommy reacts by bullying classmates, especially a shy, overweight new boy at school named Sam. When he’s caught stealing from Sam’s father’s store, Tommy retaliates by planting a copy of a communist newspaper found during a community paper drive in the store. After the owner’s accused of being a communist and the store’s boycotted, Tommy realizes he’s acting like an outlaw instead of a cowboy, and he tries to find the real communist in the neighborhood, leading to surprising discoveries and the help his family desperately needs. Speaking in the first person, Tommy reveals himself as a good-hearted, responsible kid who’s temporarily lost his moral compass. Effective use of cowboy imagery allows Tommy to step up like his hero, Gary Cooper in High Noon, and do the right thing. Period detail and historical references effectively capture the anti-communist paranoia of the McCarthy era.
A winningly authentic, realistic and heartwarming family drama. (author’s note, photos) (Historical fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16328-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A story just as relevant in our world, “where innocent people face persecution and death for making a choice about what they...
“There’s no place for the likes of you in our class,” Sasha Zaichik’s teacher tells him, and that seems to be the motto of the whole Stalinist nation.
Yelchin’s debut novel does a superb job of depicting the tyranny of the group, whether residents of a communal apartment, kids on the playground, students in the classroom or government officials. It’s the readiness of the group to create outsiders—bad ones, “unreliables,” “wreckers”—by instilling fear in everyone that chills. Not many books for such a young audience address the Stalinist era, when, between 1923 and 1953, leaving a legacy of fear for future generations. Joseph Stalin’s State Security was responsible for exiling, executing or imprisoning 20 million people. Sasha is 10 years old and is devoted to Stalin, even writing adoring letters to Comrade Stalin expressing his eagerness at becoming a Young Pioneer. But his mother has died mysteriously, his father has been imprisoned and Sasha finds he has important moral choices to make. Yelchin’s graphite illustrations are an effective complement to his prose, which unfurls in Sasha’s steady, first-person voice, and together they tell an important tale.
A story just as relevant in our world, “where innocent people face persecution and death for making a choice about what they believe to be right,” as that of Yelchin’s childhood. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9216-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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