by Chris Lynch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 3, 2019
A lackluster story with forgettable characters.
A surfer joins the U.S. Navy and fights in the Korean War.
Fergus Frew Junior loves the ocean despite its being the reason his father, Fergus Senior, died. It’s June 1949: Fergus has just graduated high school and has no plans except for catching sweet waves on the beach. On one such day, Fergus meets Duke, a U.S. Marine who borrows his surfboard without asking. Despite Fergus’ being hotheaded and having no interest in making friends, the two form a bond over their love of the sea. All the while, Duke—embittered by his experience with other Marines—encourages Fergus to join the Navy, selling it as an opportunity for a comfortable life living in pleasant locations. A tragic accident prompts Fergus to listen to his friend’s advice, and he joins the Navy with perilous consequences, as he is drawn into the Korean War. Tender moments between Fergus and his mother and the odd but interesting friendship between Fergus and Duke are unfortunately not enough to offset the dry writing and underdeveloped plot. The too-fast pacing leaves little room to form attachments to any of the characters or provide enough historical context for the events at hand. While promising at first, this quick read results in little enjoyment, much like one of Fergus’ listless, aimless summers. All American characters seem to be white.
A lackluster story with forgettable characters. (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-86165-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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by Jane Yolen ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2018
Stands out neither as a folk-tale retelling, a coming-of-age story, nor a Holocaust novel.
A Holocaust tale with a thin “Hansel and Gretel” veneer from the author of The Devil’s Arithmetic (1988).
Chaim and Gittel, 14-year-old twins, live with their parents in the Lodz ghetto, forced from their comfortable country home by the Nazis. The siblings are close, sharing a sign-based twin language; Chaim stutters and communicates primarily with his sister. Though slowly starving, they make the best of things with their beloved parents, although it’s more difficult once they must share their tiny flat with an unpleasant interfaith couple and their Mischling (half-Jewish) children. When the family hears of their impending “wedding invitation”—the ghetto idiom for a forthcoming order for transport—they plan a dangerous escape. Their journey is difficult, and one by one, the adults vanish. Ultimately the children end up in a fictional child labor camp, making ammunition for the German war effort. Their story effectively evokes the dehumanizing nature of unremitting silence. Nevertheless, the dense, distancing narrative (told in a third-person contemporaneous narration focused through Chaim with interspersed snippets from Gittel’s several-decades-later perspective) has several consistency problems, mostly regarding the relative religiosity of this nominally secular family. One theme seems to be frustration with those who didn’t fight back against overwhelming odds, which makes for a confusing judgment on the suffering child protagonists.
Stands out neither as a folk-tale retelling, a coming-of-age story, nor a Holocaust novel. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-25778-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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by Jeff Strand ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2014
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre.
Survival camp? How can you not have bad feelings about that?
Sixteen-year-old nerd (or geek, but not dork) Henry Lambert has no desire to go to Strongwoods Survival Camp. His father thinks it might help Henry man up and free him of some of his odd phobias. Randy, Henry’s best friend since kindergarten, is excited at the prospect of going thanks to the camp’s promotional YouTube video, so Henry relents. When they arrive at the shabby camp in the middle of nowhere and meet the possibly insane counselor (and only staff member), Max, Henry’s bad feelings multiply. Max tries to train his five campers with a combination of carrot and stick, but the boys are not athletes, let alone survivalists. When a trio of gangsters drops in on the camp Games to try to collect the debt owed by the owner, the boys suddenly have to put their skills to the test. Too bad they don’t have any—at all. Strand’s summer-camp farce is peopled with sarcastic losers who’re chatty and wry. It’s often funny, and the gags turn in unexpected directions and would do Saturday Night Live skits proud. However, the story’s flow is hampered by an unnecessary and completely unfunny frame that takes place during the premier of the movie the boys make of their experience. The repeated intrusions bring the narrative to a screeching halt.
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8455-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
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