An engaging and realistic story about Americans protesting the Vietnam conflict.
A novel offers a coming-of-age tale set in the Vietnam War era.
Forst (The Journey of Hannah Woods, 2013, etc.) in her latest effort presents Jake Edwards, a typical, middle-class kid but with a big problem: severe dyslexia. When he flunks summer school yet again, his parents give up and send him to live with his “hippie” Grandma Rose, who teaches at an alternative school (The Peaceable Institute) in upstate New York. Complicating the move is the fact that Grandma Rose and her son and daughter-in-law have a fraught relationship. Rose strongly opposes the Vietnam War. Jake’s parents, while not flag-wavers, support the conflict, particularly because Jake’s older brother, Aaron, who enlisted in the Army, works in Saigon as a radio operator. Jake’s family situation infuriates him. He looks up to his big brother, distrusts Grandma Rose, and hates being uprooted with no say in the matter. The Peaceable Institute gives Jake a different view of the war, a confusing and scary one. But can he protest the war without being disloyal to his brother? Events escalate. Jake is teargassed during a peaceful protest in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An investigative journalist exposes the My Lai Massacre in South Vietnam. The Kent State shootings in Ohio divide the nation. And Aaron disappears from his relatively safe haven in Saigon. Jake can be borderline annoying with his Sturm und Drang, but then the reader remembers that the character is not just a teenager, but a youth with problems that would challenge anyone. Forst tells a good yarn; the dialogue mostly rings true, and scenes like the protest in Cambridge give the narrative believable chaos. Rose remains a benevolent and wise soul without becoming a tie-dyed caricature. While the author clearly sides with the protesters, she never demonizes those who served. The timeline in the appendix is enlightening and helpful. The novel may be especially valuable for today’s teens, many of whom see the battles in Vietnam as ancient history.
An engaging and realistic story about Americans protesting the Vietnam conflict.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5188-9921-8
Page Count: 172
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0142413836
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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