This novel touches on sensitive and tragic moments in history and gives them fantastical remediation for a provocative,...
In the “second world” dwell people who did not arrive of their own volition. But in that world exist communities and harmony, between and among the Raftworlders (with dark brown skin and tightly curled hair) and the Islanders (with lighter-brown skin and straight hair).
Access to the second world is gained through a portal, which cannot be mapped, tracked, or predicted. This novel relates the stories of three different sets of relatives, whose stories intertwine. First up are Islanders Pip and Kinchen. Pip has the gift of talking to fishes, a gift the Raft King—ruler of Raftworld—is dangerously desperate to use so that he and his people can find the portal and leave the second world. There are also Venus and her twin brother, Swimmer—enslaved people held on a ship headed for Jamaica in 1781. They escape lives of bondage and heartbreaking cruelty via the portal to the second world. Finally, readers meet Thanh and Sang, a brother and sister trying to escape war-torn Vietnam on a small boat, when a violent storm and a brutal pirate attack threaten their survival. Bouwman takes these disparate stories and fits the pieces of her puzzle together in pleasantly surprising ways, down to the very end. Shimizu’s black-and-white illustrations are lovely and vital to picturing the different worlds and moments conjured by the author.
This novel touches on sensitive and tragic moments in history and gives them fantastical remediation for a provocative, immersive read. (afterword, bibliography) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54519-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable.
Six New Jersey 12-year-olds separated by decades race to ensure the “good guys” win World War II in this middle-grade work by the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and her brother, a children's author and journalist.
It all starts with a ham radio that Alice, Lawrence, and Artie fool around with in 1944 and Henry, Frances, and Lukas find in 2023. It’s late April, and the 1944 kids worry about loved ones in combat, while the 2023 kids study the war in school. When, impossibly, the radio allows the kids to communicate across time, it doesn’t take long before they share information that changes history. Can the two sets of kids work across a 79-year divide to prevent the U.S.A. from becoming the Nazi-controlled dystopia of Westfallen? This propulsive thriller includes well-paced cuts between times that keep the pages turning. Like most people in their small New Jersey town, Alice, Artie, and Frances are white. In 1944, Lawrence, who’s Black, endures bigotry; in the U.S.A. of 2023, Henry’s biracial (white and Black) identity and Lukas’ Jewish one are unremarkable, but in Westfallen, Henry’s a “mischling” doing “work-learning,” and Lukas is a menial laborer. Alice’s and Henry’s dual first-person narration zooms in on the adventure, but readers who pull back may find themselves deeply uneasy with the summary consideration paid to the real-life fates of European Jews and disabled people. The cliffhanger ending will have them hoping for more thoughtful treatment in sequels to come.
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781665950817
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
A very promising kickoff with arbitrary but intriguingly challenging magic.
A middle schooler discovers both up and down sides to being able to foretell the future.
Members of the Cleary clan in alternating generations have always been granted predictive powers on their 4,444th day of life, and Celia has been eagerly looking forward to her first vision—until, that is, it comes and reveals that cute, quiet classmate Jeffrey is slated to die in a hit-and-run. Weighing her horror against her wise Grammy’s warnings that fate is inexorable, she contrives a way to head off the accident…only to foresee another fatal mishap in his future. And another. By the time she’s saved his life five times in a row, she’s not only exhausted, but crushing on the hapless lad. (As, unsurprisingly, he is on her.) Reintgen generally keeps the tone of his series opener light, so even after Celia discovers that there’s ultimately a tragic price for her intervention, the ensuing funeral service is marked by as much laughter as sorrow. The author surrounds his frantic but good-hearted protagonist with a particularly sturdy supporting cast that includes gratifyingly cooperative friends as well as her Grammy and loving, if nonmagical, mom. There don’t seem to be many Cleary men around; perhaps that and certain other curious elements, like a chart listing particular Cleary specialties with names such as Dreamwalker and Grimdark, will be addressed in future entries. Main characters read as White.
A very promising kickoff with arbitrary but intriguingly challenging magic. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-357-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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