by Doris Gwaltney ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2006
Seventh-grader Margaret Ann lives for the day her big sister Elizabeth leaves for the State Teacher’s College; she shares a bedroom with her iron-fisted Grandmother and longs for a room of her own. Weeks later, however, her aunt and cousin, whom she’s never met, flee the London Blitz and land straight in Elizabeth’s room. Margaret Ann hates her cousin Courtney on sight; Courtney returns the favor. This promising build-up gets lost as Gwaltney chronicles the entire war in all its many ramifications. The two girls are never held accountable for their actions; their enmity ends with a whimper, not a bang, and as a result, their ultimate friendship feels a little forced. Many of the side characters are drawn with greater realism than the narrator. The language and dialogue evoke the setting beautifully, however, and overall this is a fine look at how WWII affected those left at home. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-689-86842-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2006
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by Marina Budhos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2006
Illegal immigrant sisters learn a lot about themselves when their family faces deportation in this compelling contemporary drama. Immigrants from Bangladesh, Nadira, her older sister Aisha and their parents live in New York City with expired visas. Fourteen-year-old Nadira describes herself as “the slow-wit second-born” who follows Aisha, the family star who’s on track for class valedictorian and a top-rate college. Everything changes when post-9/11 government crack-downs on Muslim immigrants push the family to seek asylum in Canada where they are turned away at the border and their father is arrested by U.S. immigration. The sisters return to New York living in constant fear of detection and trying to pretend everything is normal. As months pass, Aisha falls apart while Nadira uses her head in “a right way” to save her father and her family. Nadira’s need for acceptance by her family neatly parallels the family’s desire for acceptance in their adopted country. A perceptive peek into the lives of foreigners on the fringe. (endnote) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4169-0351-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Ginee Seo/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
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by Michael Morpurgo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2004
From England’s Children’s Laureate, a searing WWI-era tale of a close extended family repeatedly struck by adversity and injustice. On vigil in the trenches, 17-year-old Thomas Peaceful looks back at a childhood marked by guilt over his father’s death, anger at the shabby treatment his strong-minded mother receives from the local squire and others—and deep devotion to her, to his brain-damaged brother Big Joe, and especially to his other older brother Charlie, whom he has followed into the army by lying about his age. Weaving telling incidents together, Morpurgo surrounds the Peacefuls with mean-spirited people at home, and devastating wartime experiences on the front, ultimately setting readers up for a final travesty following Charlie’s refusal of an order to abandon his badly wounded brother. Themes and small-town class issues here may find some resonance on this side of the pond, but the particular cultural and historical context will distance the story from American readers—particularly as the pace is deliberate, and the author’s hints about where it’s all heading are too rare and subtle to create much suspense. (Fiction. 11-13, adult)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63648-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2004
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