Readers are sure to overlook craft flaws as they fall in love with spunky Beth.
Debut author Rankin breathes life into the story of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Nothing has been going right for white 11-year-old Elizabeth “Littlebeth” Morgan. She’d rather read dime novels than be “a proper, refined young lady.” After an incident involving a rattlesnake proves to be the last straw for her parents, she is shipped off to her aunt in San Francisco, a change that they hope will “take the sass out of that lass.” Shortly after narrator Littlebeth arrives, San Francisco is hit by the catastrophic earthquake of 1906, throwing the city and her life into utter chaos. Although Beth (she renames herself in San Francisco) ultimately returns home relatively unscathed, Rankin does not hesitate to show (forgoing gruesome details) that not everyone, including her protagonist’s aunt, is so lucky. An intriguing cast of secondary characters—including her Presbyterian aunt’s Jewish beau, the opera star Enrico Caruso, and a newly immigrated young Chinese girl—adds diversity. Each chapter header states Beth’s location and the date, and readers with knowledge of the impending disaster will find an increased sense of anticipation as the day of the earthquake looms closer. The occasional blatant foreshadowing (“I’m afraid we’re tossing her out of the frying pan and into the—”) and the frequent lack of initial pronoun use in the narration feel self-conscious.
Readers are sure to overlook craft flaws as they fall in love with spunky Beth. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-3635-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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