by Elizabeth Alder ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 12, 1995
A solid historical novel about the end of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom (106366)—a kind of colorized version of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In the early pages of her first book, Alder takes her most daring step when her hero Evyn gets his tongue cut off and is sold as a slave to the mistress of Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex and future kind of England. Evyn learns to read and write; as slave, then squire, and finally as foster son to Harold, he is witness to the hectic final days of the kingdom: Welsh rebellions, a shipwreck in Normandy, the death of King Edward and Harold's ascent to the throne, the defeat of Norway, and the Battle of Hastings. Evyn's role remains mostly peripheral—a spectator rather than a player. The plot sticks to the Chronicle and as a result has something stolid to it—a historical novel with history, not fiction, at the center, filled with heroic stereotypes straight out of the romance legends of the Middle Ages. If the characters are clichÇs, they are not cut out from cardboard, but from a medieval tapestry. Alder is an accomplished stylist; her prose is polished and often inspired. Chapter openings quote the Chronicle, setting a tone of quiet dignity, the language elevated, the syntax slightly archaicthe author has a huge vocabulary, full of period words and Old English in italics. Everything is intricately woven into one unbroken whole; Alder spins a good story, and what she spins best is description. (Fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: May 12, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-34182-6
Page Count: 257
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
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by Patricia McCormick ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 8, 2012
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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by Mackenzi Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2021
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage.
Adrian, the youngest of the Montague siblings, sails into tumultuous waters in search of answers about himself, the sudden death of his mother, and her mysterious, cracked spyglass.
On the summer solstice less than a year ago, Caroline Montague fell off a cliff in Aberdeen into the sea. When the Scottish hostel where she was staying sends a box of her left-behind belongings to London, Adrian—an anxious, White nobleman on the cusp of joining Parliament—discovers one of his mother’s most treasured possessions, an antique spyglass. She acquired it when she was the sole survivor of a shipwreck many years earlier. His mother always carried that spyglass with her, but on the day of her death, she had left it behind in her room. Although he never knew its full significance, Adrian is haunted by new questions and is certain the spyglass will lead him to the truth. Once again, Lee crafts an absorbing adventure with dangerous stakes, dynamic character growth, sharp social and political commentary, and a storm of emotion. Inseparable from his external search for answers about his mother, Adrian seeks a solution for himself, an end to his struggle with mental illness—a journey handled with hopeful, gentle honesty that validates the experiences of both good and bad days. Characters from the first two books play significant secondary roles, and the resolution ties up their loose ends. Humorous antics provide a well-measured balance with the heavier themes.
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage. (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-291601-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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