Magic helps an orphaned heiress fight a rapacious uncle out to steal the family fortune.
After her parents drown off the coast of Maine in 1906, Lucy is left in the care of her aunt. Unfortunately, Aunt Prudence is off in Australia tracking down a family curse, and greedy Uncle Victor steps in to control Lucy and the purse strings. Lucy has both her faithful servant and a good dose of magic on her side. She suspects that her uncle is up to no good and snoops through his papers, aided by beautiful magical mists. When her uncle decides to send her to boarding school, another magical creature shows up in the form of the teacher. The only other students at the school are three children desperately trying to avoid their drunken father, known as the Brute. Lucy tries to connect the dots between the teacher, a woman in a painting in her father’s study and a mysterious woman seen walking on the shore. Events come to a highly dramatic and visually stunning conclusion. However, Mariconda leaves the reader with unresolved threads. What is the source of the magic? What will happen on the next voyage? Adventurous possibilities await in a necessary second installment. (Historical fantasy. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-211979-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
This 2015 New Visions Award winner offers a complex narrative and inspires readers to check their privilege to address...
Although Kelkar’s debut novel takes place in colonial India in the 1940s, when Indian citizens were fighting for independence from British rule, it is uncannily timely: 10-year old Anjali grapples with issues of social justice in many of the same ways young people are today.
When Anjali’s mother quits her job to become a freedom fighter, Anjali is reluctant to join the struggle, as it means she will have to eschew her decorated skirts and wear home-spun khadi (hand-woven cotton) instead, inviting the mockery of her school nemeses. But as her relationship with her mother evolves, her experience of and commitment to activism change as well. When her mother is imprisoned and commences a hunger strike, Anjali continues her work and begins to unlearn her prejudices. According to an author’s note, Kelkar was inspired by the biography of her great-grandmother Anasuyabai Kale, and the tale is enriched by the author’s proximity to the subject matter and access to primary sources. Kelkar also complicates Western impressions of Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi—Anjali realizes that Gandhi is flawed—and introduces readers to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a figure rarely mentioned in texts for young people in the United States but who is best known for campaigning against social discrimination of Dalits, or members of India’s lower castes.
This 2015 New Visions Award winner offers a complex narrative and inspires readers to check their privilege to address ongoing injustices. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62014-356-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Tu Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
A good starting point to introduce the legacy of tribal termination.
In 1954, the Umpqua tribe was terminated by the government.
Unable to afford their land on the former Umpqua Grand Ronde reservation in Oregon, 10-year-old Regina Petit’s father, who is Umpqua, decides to sign up for the Indian Relocation Program and move the entire family to Los Angeles. Regina and her little sister, Peewee, spend the summer adjusting to life in their multicultural South Central Los Angeles neighborhood, where they befriend black siblings Keith and Addie and Cuban brothers Anthony and Philip. In this new environment, Regina is forced to confront the dominant ideas about her Indian identity through what the other kids have learned at school and from the 1950s TV show The Lone Ranger. A neighborhood game of Cowboys and Indians defies the outcome Regina played on the rez, where the Indians win. The children experience a racist attack while trick-or-treating when white teenagers throw eggs and use the N-word. (The book leaves Regina puzzling over this incident without addressing the history or implications of the slur.) McManis and Sorell produce a poignant family story of the impact termination had on the thousands of Native Americans who left reservations in order to survive. Using a supporting cast of color to reflect distorted stereotypes back at them, however, has the effect of eliding the implication of white culture in their origins.
A good starting point to introduce the legacy of tribal termination. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62014-839-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Tu Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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