Action-packed.
Two siblings must defend the last surviving city on Earth.
Decades ago, humanity was divided into two groups: those who inhabit Flood City—like Max and Yala Salazar—and the Chemical Barons, who ruled over Earth but took off into space when it was devastated by the Floods. Now, the Chemical Barons want to return to Earth, and Mephim, an ArchBaron in the Chemical Dynasty, has a nefarious plan to achieve this. But, when Ato, a young Baron in training, discovers the truth behind a routine reconnaissance mission, he questions his loyalties in the battle between the Barons, the Earthlings, and the Star Guard Conglomerate, peacekeepers and providers of food rations for the people of Flood City. Back on Earth, Yala secretly wants to join the Star Guard and help fight the Chemical Barons even if she doesn’t agree with everything they do—and when the Barons attack, the struggle for survival begins. The cast is diverse, and race is a factor in this world in which predominantly Black and brown people were left behind in Flood City while mostly White people escaped. This element of the story, which parallels real-life environmental inequities, is mentioned in passing as something Baron histories uncomfortably avoid engaging with and that forcibly strikes Ato when he arrives on Earth. Jarring perspective changes keep readers moving through Flood City and its airspace but can be confusing to follow. Older’s signature infusion of fantastical elements into the dystopian environment grounds readers in the characters’ high-stakes challenges.
Action-packed. (Science fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-11112-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)
Near the end of World War II, two kids join their parents in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Max, 12, lives with his parents and his older sister in a Berlin that’s under constant air bombardment. During one such raid, a mortally wounded man stumbles into the white German family’s home and gasps out his last wish: “The Führer must die.” With this nighttime visitation, Max and Gerta discover their parents have been part of a resistance cell, and the siblings want in. They meet a colorful band of upper-class types who seem almost too whimsical to be serious. Despite her charming levity, Prussian aristocrat and cell leader Frau Becker is grimly aware of the stakes. She enlists Max and Gerta as couriers who sneak forged identification papers to Jews in hiding. Max and Gerta are merely (and realistically) cogs in the adults’ plans, but there’s plenty of room for their own heroism. They escape capture, rescue each other when they’re caught out during an air raid, and willingly put themselves repeatedly at risk to catch a spy. The fictional plotters—based on a mix of several real anti-Hitler resistance cells—are portrayed with a genuine humor, giving them the space to feel alive even in such a slim volume.
It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-35902-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Compelling and accessible.
Steven must fight for his own life as well as for his baby brother’s when he’s offered a chance to exchange human life for something better.
Steve has figured out strategies to cope with many of his anxieties and OCD behaviors, but this summer the pressure is on. Readers see through Steve’s eyes his parents' fears for the new baby, whose congenital health issues are complicated and unusual. Readers may find parallels with Skelligin the sibling anxiety and the odd encounter with a winged creature—but here the stranger is part of something sinister indeed. “We’ve come to help,” assures the winged, slightly ethereal being who offers a solution to Steven in a dream. “We come when people are scared or in trouble. We come when there’s grief.” Oppel deftly conveys the fear and dislocation that can overwhelm a family: there’s the baby born with problems, the ways that affects the family, and Steve’s own struggles to feel and be normal. Everything feels a bit skewed, conveying the experience of being in transition from the familiar to the threateningly unfamiliar. Klassen’s several illustrations in graphite, with their linear formality and stillness and only mere glimpses of people, nicely express this sense of worry and tension. Steve’s battle with the enemy is terrifying, moving from an ominous, baleful verbal conflict to a pitched, physical, life-threatening battle.
Compelling and accessible. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3232-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
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