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Elizabeth's War

Name: Elizabeth's War
Author: D.L. Finn
ISBN: 978-0-9962582-1-0

by D.L. Finn illustrated by Monica Gibson ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

The view is a bit rose-tinted, but a pleasant diversion nonetheless.

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A slim but charming debut tale about life on the homefront during World War I, as seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old Midwestern farm girl.

In the spring of 1917, two weeks after America entered the war, young Elizabeth MacNeil’s life is about to become a lot more challenging. The youngest of four children, “Libby” has been coddled and protected both by her parents and by her siblings. Through the first-person narrative, readers share Libby’s fears and lack of confidence as she transforms from being a young girl fantasizing about new dresses to assuming responsibilities that make her a strong, pivotal member of her family. One by one, the people upon whom she has depended disappear or falter. Her father and oldest brother go off to war, her sister Pearl withdraws into depression, and her mother is increasingly exhausted by an unanticipated pregnancy. Gradually, Libby masters the skills she has mostly avoided: cooking, knitting (for the troops), and taking care of Sarah and brother Paul when they contract chicken pox. But Finn captures more than Elizabeth’s story. The novel also recalls the experiences of living with rationings, the introduction of light airplanes to the war machine, and the controversy over the suffragette movement. Libby is a delightful protagonist, alternating between wishing she could be of more help and resenting the intrusion upon her formerly rather carefree life. She’s a normal 11-year-old who rises to some extraordinary demands. The plot is compressed into a short period of only nine or 10 months, making the confluence of events feel a bit unrealistic. Still, the war functions primarily as a backdrop, and Finn nicely evokes the sentiment of how it was being waged back home. Literate and fluid writing speeds readers through to a tense conclusion.

The view is a bit rose-tinted, but a pleasant diversion nonetheless.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-0-9962582-1-0

Page Count: 118

Publisher: Book Baby

Review Posted Online: July 15, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION

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AHIMSA

by Supriya Kelkar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2017

This 2015 New Visions Award winner offers a complex narrative and inspires readers to check their privilege to address...

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Although Kelkar’s debut novel takes place in colonial India in the 1940s, when Indian citizens were fighting for independence from British rule, it is uncannily timely: 10-year old Anjali grapples with issues of social justice in many of the same ways young people are today.

When Anjali’s mother quits her job to become a freedom fighter, Anjali is reluctant to join the struggle, as it means she will have to eschew her decorated skirts and wear home-spun khadi (hand-woven cotton) instead, inviting the mockery of her school nemeses. But as her relationship with her mother evolves, her experience of and commitment to activism change as well. When her mother is imprisoned and commences a hunger strike, Anjali continues her work and begins to unlearn her prejudices. According to an author’s note, Kelkar was inspired by the biography of her great-grandmother Anasuyabai Kale, and the tale is enriched by the author’s proximity to the subject matter and access to primary sources. Kelkar also complicates Western impressions of Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi—Anjali realizes that Gandhi is flawed—and introduces readers to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a figure rarely mentioned in texts for young people in the United States but who is best known for campaigning against social discrimination of Dalits, or members of India’s lower castes.

This 2015 New Visions Award winner offers a complex narrative and inspires readers to check their privilege to address ongoing injustices. (Historical fiction. 8-12)