An engaging though somewhat anachronistic glimpse into the life and mind of a talented young woman sidelined in the annals...
On their grand tour of Europe, esteemed 12-year-old musician Nannerl Mozart begins to challenge the social limitations that exclude her from the professional opportunities her younger brother, Wolfi, enjoys.
Told from Nannerl’s youthful third-person-limited perspective supplemented by fictionalized diary entries and letters, the novel speculates on the inner life of Mozart’s older sister, a skilled performer in her own right. Readers are swept into the politics and bustle of Europe’s 18th-century music scene as the Mozart family travels from one performance for nobility to the next. Despite her affection for Wolfi, Nannerl can’t help resenting the attention he receives from adults, especially after she shows a renowned composer the symphony she has written and he laughs in her face. While the author’s note reveals several instances that differ from historical records, the novel truly shines in its descriptions of Nannerl playing and composing music, moments when the voice transcends its generic tone: She envisions herself traveling through arrangements of notes as though they were landscapes or painting the notes into the air colored by her emotions and memories. Originally published in 1996 as The Secret Wish of Nannerl Mozart, the book has a dated feel in the way it addresses gender stereotypes and dynamics, even within its historical setting. Characters are assumed white.
An engaging though somewhat anachronistic glimpse into the life and mind of a talented young woman sidelined in the annals of history. (chronology, glossary, works cited) (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77260-089-6
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Second Story Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
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
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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