Sensitive, funny, and tender.
Set in post-apartheid Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, this realistic story traces protagonist Mercy’s quest to speak up for truth and, consequently, for herself.
Eleven-year-old Mercy has lived with her two elderly foster mothers—“Aunt Flora” and “Aunt Mary” McKnight—since she was orphaned at the age of 5. Although their home is filled with love, the McKnight sisters are so poor that they reuse tea bags as many as four to five times and most of the furniture has been sold. To make matters worse, Aunt Flora is slowly losing her memory to Alzheimer’s, and their beloved house seems to be falling apart just as a greedy housing developer is eying their property. Painfully shy and reserved, Mercy struggles to cope with her school assignments and her complicated home life as she tries very hard not to stand out. When Mr. Singh moves into the McKnight house as a lodger, his stories about Gandhi’s peaceful struggle for independence inspire Mercy to stand up for herself. Krone’s characters are diverse, convincing, and full of life. The McKnight sisters are White, Mercy has dark skin and is likely of mixed heritage, Mr. Singh is Indian, and Mercy’s classmates are representative of South Africa’s diverse communities. The story stands on its own, but readers unfamiliar with South Africa might also benefit from concurrent research or discussion about South African history, cultures, and languages.
Sensitive, funny, and tender. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-946395-17-7
Page Count: 162
Publisher: Catalyst Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
A story of perseverance and love.
Onyx has a secret.
It’s 1970, and following the death of his grandmother, Onyx, a 12-year-old Black boy, is left living alone with his mother, who has early onset dementia. Fearing losing Mama, too, he keeps her condition a secret from everyone and instead vows to make sure that he keeps up the show of everything being OK at home. His days are filled with completing chores, leaving sticky notes for Mama to read when she wakes up, attending Catholic school, and catching up with his cousins and other relatives when he can. Onyx relies on the knowledge passed on to him by his grandmother to manage their Alexandria, Virginia, home—shopping for groceries and preparing simple meals for himself and his mother. As her condition begins to worsen, however, he desperately tries to find a way to help Mama get her memories back. Facing the looming threat of a home visit by social workers, Onyx takes bigger and bigger risks in his attempts to return his mother to her former self. Written in verse through the eyes of a child, the novel tackles complex topics honestly yet hopefully. As readers follow Onyx in his endeavors to help his mother, they’re also given a glimpse into being a young Black boy who, for all his troubles in life, has just as many joyful moments with his family and friends.
A story of perseverance and love. (author’s note) (Verse historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781250908780
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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