Although entertaining, this tale fails to fully plumb the depths of a moving and poignant topic.
Anna is dealing with one tragedy after another. Her best friend, Maggie, has life much easier—but barely recognizes that.
Based upon a true story, this tale is set in small-town Saskatchewan in 1948. Anna’s mother dies in childbirth, right after eliciting a promise from the seventh-grader that she’ll care for the fragile new baby. With an impoverished father who drinks too much and four siblings, including two much younger sisters, in addition to the baby, Anna leaves school to become surrogate mother to the brood. She illuminates her quiet despair in a believably desperate first-person narrative. In alternating chapters, Maggie relates that she’s the daughter of a loving Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman and a distant, often harsh mother. She frequently pushes back against her domineering mother and is rarely kind to her 5-year-old brother. The contrast between the two girls is perhaps starker than Young intended. As Maggie deals with a first boyfriend and smoking a stolen cigarette, Anna washes diapers and tenderly cares for her needy siblings. The immensity of the final tragedy that befalls Anna is crushing but also serves to completely trivialize Maggie’s various young-teen issues and her character, a shortcoming that’s exaggerated by a convenient, too-easy resolution of her trite problems. The cast appears to be an all-white one.
Although entertaining, this tale fails to fully plumb the depths of a moving and poignant topic. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77203-264-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Wandering Fox
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Brava!
From award winner Telgemeier (Smile, 2010), a pitch-perfect graphic novel portrayal of a middle school musical, adroitly capturing the drama both on and offstage.
Seventh-grader Callie Marin is over-the-moon to be on stage crew again this year for Eucalyptus Middle School’s production of Moon over Mississippi. Callie's just getting over popular baseball jock and eighth-grader Greg, who crushed her when he left Callie to return to his girlfriend, Bonnie, the stuck-up star of the play. Callie's healing heart is quickly captured by Justin and Jesse Mendocino, the two very cute twins who are working on the play with her. Equally determined to make the best sets possible with a shoestring budget and to get one of the Mendocino boys to notice her, the immensely likable Callie will find this to be an extremely drama-filled experience indeed. The palpably engaging and whip-smart characterization ensures that the charisma and camaraderie run high among those working on the production. When Greg snubs Callie in the halls and misses her reference to Guys and Dolls, one of her friends assuredly tells her, "Don't worry, Cal. We’re the cool kids….He's the dork." With the clear, stylish art, the strongly appealing characters and just the right pinch of drama, this book will undoubtedly make readers stand up and cheer.
Brava! (Graphic fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-32698-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
SEEN & HEARD
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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