Traditional, inoffensive—probably a holiday hit.
Just in time for Christmas, Berg (We Are All Welcome Here, April 2006, etc.) delivers a story about the Christ child, highlighting the romance between his young parents.
What to do with an iconic story known throughout the world? Berg does very little, keeping it safe and simple and with few deviations from the commonly accepted narrative, guaranteed to neither insult nor inspire. Sixteen-year-old Joseph meets 13-year-old Mary at a wedding (they are hiding, still children really, under a banquet table) and fall in love. They are betrothed, but will remain in their respective parents’ homes for a year, until their marriage is finalized with a wedding, and a wedding night. Mary, stubborn and inquisitive, is beginning to question her engagement to Joseph, who, despite his youth, is stern and proper, eager for Mary to adopt her submissive, wifely role. All is turned upside-down, though, when an angel visits Mary to tell her she is with child. Mary is sent off to stay with her cousin Elizabeth, while her mother delivers the miraculous news to Joseph, at home in Nazareth. What man would accept the story of a virgin pregnancy from his wife? Not Joseph. But rather than focus on Joseph’s natural reaction, Berg shows his doubts dispatched by an angelic visit of his own, whereupon he agrees to the planned marriage. They settle into a happy union as Mary prepares to give birth, when they unexpectedly must journey to Bethlehem. The story of their plight—Mary’s anger at Joseph for making her travel so close to the birth; her fear of being without a midwife; his desperation in a strange city where no one will house them for the night—is nicely told, bringing humanity to a scene that is often reduced to greeting-card familiarity. After the birth of Jesus, the family lives happily in Nazareth until Joseph meets an early end, in love with his wife, but still skeptical of the virgin birth. Berg makes conventional, contemporary choices—Mary is spunky; Joseph conflicted—but shies away from any keener analysis of faith or marriage or miracles.
Traditional, inoffensive—probably a holiday hit.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2006
ISBN: 1-4000-6538-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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