by Catherine Jinks ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2004
Equal parts Boethius and blackmail, this third volume of a projected quartet sends wise-cracking ex-street-kid Pagan Kidrouk and his best friend/father figure Roland Roucy de Bram into the bookish but far from otherworldly confines of a 12th-century Benedictine monastery. With his usual gift for landing in the soup, not only does Pagan struggle to adapt to the (supposedly) ascetic monastic life style, he’s singled out for relentless grilling in Latin, Rhetoric, and other scholastic studies, cottons to an extortion scheme involving alms money and a fugitive pederast, and worriedly watches Roland, devout but shaken to his soul by the heartbreaking events of Pagan in Exile (2004), wasting away. Nothing like the cloistered life for peace and quiet. As before, Pagan’s mix of bad attitude and profound loyalty make a winning combination, and readers will come (or continue) to care as deeply as he does for his troubled, deeply decent companion. Humor? Rage? Agony? Spiritual journeys? Murder? Moral turpitude? Twists both welcome and dismaying? This decidedly unique historical saga has it all. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7636-2021-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
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by Catherine Jinks ; illustrated by Sarah Watts
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by Catherine Jinks ; illustrated by Sarah Watts
by John Boyne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2006
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
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by John Boyne
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by John Boyne
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Patricia McCormick ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 8, 2012
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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by Patricia McCormick ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
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by Malala Yousafzai with Patricia McCormick
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