An emotionally layered vision of a difficult moment in history.
In a Michigan apple orchard in 1944, a German soldier and an American girl reflect on wartime life.
Claire DeBoer, a careworn 13-year-old Dutch American girl, bears countless responsibilities on her family’s farm and dreams of one day becoming a nurse. Karl Hartmann, a teenage German prisoner of war, arrives in Michigan to do agricultural work through a federal program. The book opens with atmospheric poems introducing each protagonist, effectively using George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From” format. This reflective verse novel alternates their perspectives as it explores their intersecting lives. Claire’s brother is fighting in Europe, so the dissonance of enemy soldiers on her farm feels like a cruel joke. Karl is awakening to the immensity of Nazi atrocities and anti-American propaganda, though some of his more nationalistic fellow prisoners are determined to make him suffer. Calm and dread intertwine: The soothing harvest-time rhythms intermingle with the ever-present threat of tremendous loss. Karl and Claire, having lost their youths to a global conflict, discover a tenuous friendship; the hinted-at mutual romantic feelings between an eighth grader and someone described as “almost a man” might cause some discomfort. VanderLugt’s reflections on war’s personal toll and the tensions of having enemy troops working in America offer opportunities for readers to consider matters from many angles. An author’s note describes her inspiration—the German POWs who worked in her own grandfather’s fruit orchards during the war.
An emotionally layered vision of a difficult moment in history. (sources) (Verse historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9780310155775
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history.
In spare verse, Lowry reflects on moments in her childhood, including the bombings of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.
When she was a child, Lowry played at Waikiki Beach with her grandmother while her father filmed. In the old home movie, the USS Arizona appears through the mist on the horizon. Looking back at her childhood in Hawaii and then Japan, Lowry reflects on the bombings that began and ended a war and how they affected and connected everyone involved. In Part 1, she shares the lives and actions of sailors at Pearl Harbor. Part 2 is stories of civilians in Hiroshima affected by the bombing. Part 3 presents her own experience as an American in Japan shortly after the war ended. The poems bring the haunting human scale of war to the forefront, like the Christmas cards a sailor sent days before he died or the 4-year-old who was buried with his red tricycle after Hiroshima. All the personal stories—of sailors, civilians, and Lowry herself—are grounding. There is heartbreak and hope, reminding readers to reflect on the past to create a more peaceful future. Lowry uses a variety of poetry styles, identifying some, such as triolet and haiku. Pak’s graphite illustrations are like still shots of history, adding to the emotion and somber feeling. He includes some sailors of color among the mostly white U.S. forces; Lowry is white.
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history. (author’s note, bibliography) (Memoir/poetry. 10-14)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-12940-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
PROFILES
Luminescent, just like the artwork it celebrates. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
Traumatized by his father’s recent death, a boy throws a brick at an old man who collects junk in his neighborhood and winds up on probation working for him.
Pearsall bases the book on a famed real work of folk art, the Throne of the Third Heaven, by James Hampton, a janitor who built his work in a garage in Washington, D.C., from bits of light bulbs, foil, mirrors, wood, bottles, coffee cans, and cardboard—the titular seven most important things. In late 1963, 13-year-old Arthur finds himself looking for junk for Mr. Hampton, who needs help with his artistic masterpiece, begun during World War II. The book focuses on redemption rather than art, as Hampton forgives the fictional Arthur for his crime, getting the boy to participate in his work at first reluctantly, later with love. Arthur struggles with his anger over his father’s death and his mother’s new boyfriend. Readers watch as Arthur transfers much of his love for his father to Mr. Hampton and accepts responsibility for saving the art when it becomes endangered. Written in a homespun style that reflects the simple components of the artwork, the story guides readers along with Arthur to an understanding of the most important things in life.
Luminescent, just like the artwork it celebrates. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-49728-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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