Satisfied readers will look forward to the next volume in this worthy, low-key but piquant series.
In this second volume of his series on World War II (The Right Fight, 2014), Lynch turns his raw-boned storytelling talents to the Pacific theater.
On board the aircraft carrier Yorktown, Hank assists pilots flying their Dauntless, Devastator and Wildcat aircraft to get off the deck without taking an unwanted swim. There is a modicum of action (like getting hit by a torpedo), there are burials at sea, a smattering of place names that ought to fire some probing of atlases: the Coral Sea, the Marshall Islands. But Lynch has other fish to fry. One is the racism encountered by Hank’s friend Bradford, both on the top deck of the carrier and when they have a shore leave. Hank is a bit of a naif, and it appalls him when Bradford is barred from the beach at Waikiki or when the officers order him off the flight deck. But both author and Bradford keep their cools, though the latter does speak his mind to a policeman on Waikiki: “I decided if any American ever wanted to put me off someplace where I have earned my place as much as any man alive, he was gonna have to work a lot harder to do it than last time.”
Satisfied readers will look forward to the next volume in this worthy, low-key but piquant series. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-52298-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
A contemporary international thriller is woven together from alternating first-person perspectives. Freya, daughter of a British fashion designer who wants to create a line based on Somali beauty and exotic mystery, Khadija, a recent Somali teenage immigrant to London, and Abdi, of Somali heritage but born in the Netherlands and now living in England, share the story. The action moves from Somalia to the Muslim neighborhoods of London and then from English fashion studios and model agencies back to Somalia for an over-the-top fashion show. There, Khadija finds her younger brother, who is being held for ransom by people who have found out her secret: She just may become the next international supermodel. (Think Iman.) The betrayals that take place here seem to belong in another, more serious book. Here they are passed by too quickly. Although the device of the multiple narrators is largely successful, the third-person pieces about Mahmoud, the kidnapped boy, are printed in bold type in Freya’s chapters and do not make structural sense. The plot is driven by e-mail messages and texts, and most of the characters are made of equally flimsy fabric. There is something appealing about the adolescent characters (most of the adults are creeps), but this mishmash of a plot may have little meaning for most readers, especially if their knowledge of Somalia is limited. (Thriller. 11-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2332-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
It’s 1968. The Vietnam War and Apollo 11 are in the background, and between a war in a distant land and a spacecraft heading to the moon, Doug Swieteck starts a new life in tiny Marysville, N.Y. He hates “stupid Marysville,” so far from home and his beloved Yankee Stadium, and he may have moved away, but his cruel father and abusive brothers are still with him. Readers of the Newbery Honor–winning The Wednesday Wars (2007) will remember Doug, now less edgy and gradually more open to the possibilities of life in a small town. Each chapter opens with a print of a John James Audubon painting, and Mr. Powell, the town librarian, teaches Doug to paint and see the world as an artist. He meets pretty Lillian Spicer, just the feisty friend Doug needs, and a whole cast of small-town characters opens Doug to what he might be in the world. This is Schmidt’s best novel yet—darker than The Wednesday Wars and written with more restraint, but with the same expert attention to voice, character and big ideas. By the end of this tale, replete with allusions to Our Town, Doug realizes he’s pretty happy in Marysville, where holding hands with the green-eyed girl—and a first kiss—rival whatever might be happening on the moon. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-15260-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
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