by Dick King-Smith & illustrated by Andrew Davidson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1999
Fans of King-Smith’s light, wry animal stories (The Spotty Pig, 1997, etc.) will be shocked by this brutal Christian allegory. The creatures of Godhanger Wood go about, as is their nature, feeding on the helpless and unwary, keeping an eye out for the hunter ironically dubbed “the gamekeeper.” Meanwhile, on a great cedar of Lebanon perches the golden-feathered Skymaster, dispensing wisdom and cryptic warnings to the 12 birds who have been drawn to listen. Opening with a rabbit doe’s grisly death at the hands (literally) of the gamekeeper, the slaughter continues until, ultimately, the Skymaster is gunned down, to hang on a cross-shaped gibbet, just as the gamekeeper’s other trophies have; although an old raven later sees the Skymaster ascend heavenward, the implied promise is less likely to make an impression on readers than the ugly events leading up to it. Rendered with detail and drama reminiscent of Audubon’s, Davidson’s accomplished black-and-white wildlife portraits ennoble their animal subjects, and effectively capture the dark, tone of this radical change of pace from a popular, author. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-517-80035-7
Page Count: 151
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
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by Dick King-Smith & illustrated by Nick Bruel
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by Dick King-Smith & illustrated by Mini Grey
by Ruth Tenzer Feldman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2012
In the spirit of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic (1988), with a mix of historical details about the women's-suffrage...
Travels in time give a middle-class girl the courage to fight for both women's suffrage and her own dreams.
Sixteen-year-old Miriam, lover of typography, wants nothing more than to train at her father's print shop. But respectable, well-to-do girls don't work with heavy machinery in 1912 Portland, Ore. Miriam's immigrant Jewish parents, proud of the future they've built from poverty, intend an advantageous marriage for their only living child. If befriending a lovely pair of poor young suffragists isn't enough to make Miriam rebel, what is? Perhaps time travel is what she needs. Miriam is visited by her biblical relative, Serakh, who begs Miriam to travel back in time to help her ancestors. The daughters of Zelophehad seek a favor from Moses, and Miriam is needed to provide them with courage. Miriam pops back and forth between worlds: well-to-do Portland, where she makes morning calls and attends fancy-dress parties; biblical Moab; and the equally exotic, alien environment of suffragist marches and working-class neighborhoods. It takes all three to help her find the initiative, empathy and common sense to help push her toward adulthood.
In the spirit of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic (1988), with a mix of historical details about the women's-suffrage movement and early printing, tied together with a very Jewish thread of historical continuity . (Historical fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-932010-41-1
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Ooligan Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 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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