A lovingly and beautifully written childhood tale.
This novel chronicles a year in the life of an 8-year-old boy in Norway in 1940.
Sadi starts his story with a literal bang as a young child in an orphanage in Arendal, Norway, looks up at the stars and instead sees glass fall from the ceiling due to a nearby bomb. The tale then jumps ahead a few years to 1948 and settles into the gentler, more elegiac register that runs through the rest of the book. The child from the opening, Torvald Sarensen, is now 8 years old and preparing for a bonfire to celebrate the first day of spring with his friends Finn Pedersen and Ernhald Harlsen. Even though they are young, the boys savor their memories, such as taking a fire-lit boat ride on the night of the spring equinox. A self-described seasonal novel, the book focuses on the beauty of the land through each season, with lyrical prose that recalls a gentle Hemingway tale or the Bible: “Listening to the love song being played to him on a spring day they had seen pussy willows and crocuses and lilacs and ground flowers growing on the banks of the brook running with spring water that year.” Many sentences begin with “And”: “And they played and tested each other with their marbles until the sun came down on the Arnsfjord sound.” There is some narrative tension woven into the lovely descriptions as Torvald develops on his journey, with the early stirrings of romantic feelings, tested friendships, and the fear that he will become like the local troublemaker, Rolf Ragnar. Some of the most intriguing sections of the novel fill in the details of Rolf's life, the son of a heavy-drinking woodsman who has little interest in his son’s education. Torvald’s growing understanding of Rolf’s situation is touching. While the narrative momentum can occasionally become sluggish, particularly in the Autumn section—with its focus on minor tasks such as deciding to buy chocolate and making plans for the next day—these seem like authentic concerns for a trio of 8-year-olds. The language will grab readers even when the story fumbles.
A lovingly and beautifully written childhood tale.Pub Date: March 7, 2002
ISBN: 9780595218707
Page Count: 158
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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