The horrors of the Holocaust in a haunting novel by Pausewang (Fall-Out, 1995, etc.) that opens as a young Jewish girl who has grown up in Nazi Germany boards a train with her grandfather bound for Auschwitz: It's the beginning of a journey to hell. Pausewang vividly evokes the indignities and cruelties Jewish citizens bore at the hands of their captors, crammed with nine- year-old Alice into the cattle trucks without bathrooms, water, or fresh air. She sees a woman giving birth on the car's floor and struggles to make sense of the previous disappearances of her beloved parents, grandmother, and others. She recalls the past few years: Hitler's rise to power, her family's temple burned to the ground, her father's lost business, and the family's eventual move into hiding. No reader will be immune to the plight of these people, powerless in the face of overwhelming evil. Although Alice's grandfather dies of a coronary and the child marches off to certain death, she is not alone, but holding the hands of a stranger and her daughters. The brutal message of Pausewang's novel lingers long after the last agonizing pages are closed. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-670-86458-0
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1996
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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BOOK REVIEW
Percy Jackson takes a break from adventuring to serve up the Greek gods like flapjacks at a church breakfast.
Percy is on form as he debriefs readers concerning Chaos, Gaea, Ouranos and Pontus, Dionysus, Ariadne and Persephone, all in his dude’s patter: “He’d forgotten how beautiful Gaea could be when she wasn’t all yelling up in his face.” Here they are, all 12 Olympians, plus many various offspring and associates: the gold standard of dysfunctional families, whom Percy plays like a lute, sometimes lyrically, sometimes with a more sardonic air. Percy’s gift, which is no great secret, is to breathe new life into the gods. Closest attention is paid to the Olympians, but Riordan has a sure touch when it comes to fitting much into a small space—as does Rocco’s artwork, which smokes and writhes on the page as if hit by lightning—so readers will also meet Makaria, “goddess of blessed peaceful deaths,” and the Theban Teiresias, who accidentally sees Athena bathing. She blinds him but also gives him the ability to understand the language of birds. The atmosphere crackles and then dissolves, again and again: “He could even send the Furies after living people if they committed a truly horrific crime—like killing a family member, desecrating a temple, or singing Journey songs on karaoke night.”
The inevitable go-to for Percy’s legions of fans who want the stories behind his stories. (Mythology. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-8364-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A child finds that being alone in a tiny tropical paradise has its ups and downs in this appealingly offbeat tale from the Australian author of Peeling the Onion (1999). Though her mother is long dead and her scientist father Jack has just sailed off on a quick expedition to gather plankton, Nim is anything but lonely on her small island home. Not only does she have constant companions in Selkie, a sea lion, and a marine iguana named Fred, but Chica, a green turtle, has just arrived for an annual egg-laying—and, through the solar-powered laptop, she has even made a new e-mail friend in famed adventure novelist Alex Rover. Then a string of mishaps darkens Nim’s sunny skies: her father loses rudder and dish antenna in a storm; a tourist ship that was involved in her mother’s death appears off the island’s reefs; and, running down a volcanic slope, Nim takes a nasty spill that leaves her feverish, with an infected knee. Though she lives halfway around the world and is in reality a decidedly unadventurous urbanite, Alex, short for “Alexandra,” sets off to the rescue, arriving in the midst of another storm that requires Nim and companions to rescue her. Once Jack brings his battered boat limping home, the stage is set for sunny days again. Plenty of comic, freely-sketched line drawings help to keep the tone light, and Nim, with her unusual associates and just-right mix of self-reliance and vulnerability, makes a character young readers won’t soon tire of. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-81123-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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