by Christa Kinde ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2012
A Christian fantasy with a wholesome message and down-on-the-farm twist.
A spiritual adventure balances strong Christian messages of family and faith with the challenges of being a teenager on a farm.
This first installment in the Threshold series introduces 14-year-old Prissie Pomeroy, the only daughter in her family (she has five brothers). Life for Prissie on her family farm is pretty mundane: The highlight of her week is a visit from the friendly letter carrier, Milo. However, one day a heavenly visitor changes everything, especially her interactions with Milo, who turns out to be an angel sent to help deliver her a message. This revelation rocks Prissie’s world, with the appearance of angels testing her deep faith and opening her eyes to the many ethereal beings that surround humankind, including her own guardian angel. Kinde dedicates much of this first volume to laying the foundation for the series and clearly defining the hierarchy of angels, which range from protectors to messengers. Although the tale is short on adventure, the majority of chapters open with a short snippet of text featuring fallen angels that hints of great danger for Prissie in future installments. In tandem with Prissie’s attempts to reconcile her new ethereal companions are her struggles to maintain friendships and deal with growing pains.
A Christian fantasy with a wholesome message and down-on-the-farm twist. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-310-72419-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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by Eva Wiseman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 2012
Worthy aims are scuttled by avoidance of nuance.
The daughter of Queen Isabella’s physician discovers that her parents don’t practice the religion in which they raised her.
Doña Isabel can’t understand why her parents insist that she be betrothed to Luis, the cruel and arrogant son of her father’s friend from the royal court. At last they explain that they are marranos, secretly living as Jews but seeking to protect her from the Inquisition by marrying her to a Christian. Shocked but not particularly given to soul searching, Isabel proceeds to meet an attractive Jewish boy, Yonah, who leads her into Toledo’s ghetto for a secret Torah class and a seder. True to type, Luis turns out to be an informer who has her father arrested and tortured—but thanks to a fortuitous family letter proving that Torquemada himself had Jewish grandparents Isabel secures his release. With “Dayenu” on their lips, Isabel and her parents join Yonah’s family and other expelled Jews headed for a new life in Morocco—their passage paid with jewelry smuggled by a loyal slave. A scant few of the Christians here are not rabidly hateful, but Wiseman is plainly less intent on posing thorny issues of faith or crafting complex characters than portraying Jewish courage and solidarity in adversity.
Worthy aims are scuttled by avoidance of nuance. (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: April 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-88776-979-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
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by Eva Wiseman
by Christa Kinde ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 23, 2013
A slow but ultimately successful installment in a serviceable Christian fiction series aimed at middle-grade readers.
This second volume in the Threshold series stands, as did the series debut, with one foot in the clouds—amid an epic battle of angels and demons—and another planted firmly on the Earth, entrenched in the ordinary lives of the Pomeroy family.
In this relatively slow-paced sequel, 14-year-old Prissie Pomeroy learns that an angel has been kidnapped right from her family’s apple orchard. The other angels she knows—some of whom are members of her community in human guise—are trying to locate and rescue him. The angels are also concerned with protecting Prissie; she is important to the mission of the angels in some way and is in serious danger, but the nature of her role is not made clear. Scenes of angels and occasionally demons going about their mysterious, ethereal business are woven into the more commonplace story of a young woman dealing with complicated friendships and family dynamics. While the angels-and-demons subplot is a bit baffling, the more realistic elements of the narrative, such as the scenes that describe Prissie’s struggles with jealousy of the time and attention her father devotes to his bakery assistant, are well-executed and resonant.
A slow but ultimately successful installment in a serviceable Christian fiction series aimed at middle-grade readers. (order of angels, discussion questions) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: April 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-310-72489-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Zondervan
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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