Famous for the depiction of her family in Little Women, Louisa May Alcott had many more adventures only hinted at in her surviving childhood diaries. Based on some scant passages referring to her father’s dreams of living a pure and simple life, this tale is a fictional account of what life might have been like on the communal farm, Fruitlands. With friends like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Louisa’s life is never boring, but under her father’s ever-watchful eye, she must always be careful of her words and actions. Forced to go against her inquisitive nature, Louisa has an alternate, good persona, Louy. She decides, “In the first diary there will be Louy, who will try to be just what Mother and Father would wish. In the second diary there will be Louisa, just as she is.” Side by side, the diary entries (the secret one in italics) offer a rich comparison of what Louy wants her parents to see and, more interestingly, what she is really thinking. Through Louisa’s words, readers will become familiar with the returning-to-nature movement that the writings of Thoreau and Emerson glorified. Unfortunately, instead of the idyllic life of harmony that they envisioned, the Alcott’s find frustration, dissention, and the possibility of starvation. Though readers must remember that this is all fiction, the result is a rich evocation of a fascinating experiment. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-623815-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Soup and pasta, that is. The preparation of the two dinners forms the structure for this loose little treatment in which 12-year-old Rosie works out her changing relationship with Bailey, the proverbial boy-next-door. The reader meets Rosie and her Granny as they slice and chop, Granny’s penetrating questions and stories of her youth leading narrator Rosie to reflect in short vignettes on her lifelong friendship and on her current pre-adolescent difficulties. The scenario is repeated the following week, only now Bailey himself becomes part of the cooking crew, clearly benefiting as much from Granny’s well-timed pauses as Rosie. Rosie’s present-tense voice is fresh and young, with an ingenuous turn of phrase. The structure mitigates significant plot development, however: readers are presented with a situation—Bailey and Rosie redefine their childhood friendship—which is resolved ever-so-neatly, thanks to Granny’s remarkably parallel stories and a few pinches of garlic. Full of good humor and aromatic seasonings, this offering nevertheless may not stick to the ribs. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-029290-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
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