The forces that sent one of the great waves of immigrants to the US are exemplified by an Irish family's troubles during the potato famine that began in 1846. The people of Eamonn's tiny village are already poorer than poor when, in a harrowing opening scene, English soldiers demolish their homes and leave them destitute: absentee English landlords no longer want tenants; they have decided to raise sheep. Struggling toward Dublin, where rumor has it (erroneously) that there is work, Eamonn's family pauses in Tullamore to leave Grandma in the poorhouse: she can walk no further. When Grandma dies, the others stay on and Dad does get work, though the men are not always paid. Eamonn makes friends with Kate, who's better off: her factory-manager father has disappeared (gone to America, as only Kate knows), and she lives with her stepmother and step- grandfather on a farm where food is still available—food she shares with Eamonn's family. Still, the hungry are many and Dad has his pride—he forbids Eamonn to accept help, even when the baby is starving. Dad, too, dies, of typhoid; Kate's father secretly sends her money for a first-class ticket to join him, but she has learned to value her new family and gives the money to Eamonn for his family's passage to America. Smoothly written and well plotted to dramatize one of the sorrier sources of the age-old Irish resentment of the English, an engrossing story that brings its courageous characters and distant setting vividly to life. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 13, 1991
ISBN: 0-8234-0899-X
Page Count: 153
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
A world-class charmer, Clements (The Janitor’s Boy, 2000, etc.) woos aspiring young authors—as well as grown up publishers, editors, agents, parents, teachers, and even reviewers—with this tongue-in-cheek tale of a 12-year-old novelist’s triumphant debut. Sparked by a chance comment of her mother’s, a harried assistant editor for a (surely fictional) children’s imprint, Natalie draws on deep reserves of feeling and writing talent to create a moving story about a troubled schoolgirl and her father. First, it moves her pushy friend Zoe, who decides that it has to be published; then it moves a timorous, second-year English teacher into helping Zoe set up a virtual literary agency; then, submitted pseudonymously, it moves Natalie’s unsuspecting mother into peddling it to her waspish editor-in-chief. Depicting the world of children’s publishing as a delicious mix of idealism and office politics, Clements squires the manuscript past slush pile and contract, the editing process, and initial buzz (“The Cheater grabs hold of your heart and never lets go,” gushes Kirkus). Finally, in a tearful, joyous scene—carefully staged by Zoe, who turns out to be perfect agent material: cunning, loyal, devious, manipulative, utterly shameless—at the publication party, Natalie’s identity is revealed as news cameras roll. Selznick’s gnomic, realistic portraits at once reflect the tale’s droll undertone and deftly capture each character’s distinct personality. Terrific for flourishing school writing projects, this is practical as well as poignant. Indeed, it “grabs hold of yourheart and never lets go.” (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82594-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
This profoundly moving story is all the more impressive because of its basis in fact. Although the story is fictionalized, its most harrowing aspects are true: “Today, more than two hundred million children between the ages of five and seventeen are ‘economically active’ in the world.” Iqbal Masih, a real boy, was murdered at age 13. His killers have never been found, but it’s believed that a cartel of ruthless people overseeing the carpet industry, the “Carpet Mafia,” killed him. The carpet business in Pakistan is the backdrop for the story of a young Pakistani girl in indentured servitude to a factory owner, who also “owned” the bonds of 14 children, indentured by their own families for sorely needed money. Fatima’s first-person narrative grips from the beginning and inspires with every increment of pride and resistance the defiant Iqbal instills in his fellow workers. Although he was murdered for his efforts, Iqbal’s life was not in vain; the accounts here of children who were liberated through his and activist adults’ efforts will move readers for years to come. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85445-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
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