For readers who need their endings safe.
The myth of the power of music and love is retold for middle-graders with nuanced beauty but marred by a happy epilogue.
The veteran storytellers who reworked this story have made a creditable and even beautiful version, using language that is clear and stately. Orpheus is a musician who can make even the trees dance. A bad omen at his wedding is fulfilled when, the next day, his bride, Eurydice, goes for a walk at dawn and is felled by a snake bite. Orpheus follows her down into the underworld, and his music so moves Persephone and her husband, Hades, that the god of the underworld allows Eurydice to return to life. Orpheus must not look back until they reach the world of the living. Alas, she trips, he turns to help her, and she is gone. Orpheus pours out his grief in music until the jealous god Dionysius inflames a group of women to hack Orpheus to pieces, although his head and his lyre continue to play and sing. In this version, Persephone restores memory to both Orpheus and Eurydice so they can spend the afterlife together—an interpolation that provides emotional relief but guts the story of its power. The rich, matte illustrations are done in a pleasing, patterned style that complements the vivid, never sensational telling.
For readers who need their endings safe. (pronunciation guide, bibliography, family tree of the Greek gods, Olympians) (Mythology. 8-12)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-84686-784-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Yasmin’s campaign should help inspire young readers to believe in their own potential to make a difference and teach the...
When her source of books is threatened, so is 9-year-old Yasmin’s goal of reading a book a day “forever.”
The inspiration behind and assistant to her in that goal is Book Uncle, owner of a free lending library on the street corner where she lives. His motto is to provide the “right book for the right person for the right day.” When Book Uncle is forced to shut down his lending library because he can’t afford the permit, Yasmin is disappointed and confused. She is then motivated to try and get the lending library back in business and enlists the help of her friends and then their larger neighborhood. All this happens amid a mayoral election, which provides the perfect background for the plot. Yasmin is a precocious, inquisitive protagonist with a tendency to speak before she thinks. Her relationships with her family and friends read as authentic and loving, even, and perhaps especially, in the moments when they are not perfect. This all lays the foundation for the community organizing that later becomes so necessary in effecting the change that Yasmin seeks to make. Swaney’s playful, childlike illustrations advance the action and help to bring Yasmin’s Indian city to life.
Yasmin’s campaign should help inspire young readers to believe in their own potential to make a difference and teach the valuable lesson that sometimes it takes several small actions to make big moves. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55498-808-2
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
After Castro’s takeover, nine-year-old Julian and his older brothers are sent away by their fearful parents via “Operation Pedro Pan” to a camp in Miami for Cuban-exile children. Here he discovers that a ruthless bully has essentially been put in charge. Julian is quicker-witted than his brothers or anyone else ever imagined, though, and with his inherent smarts, developing maturity and the help of child and adult friends, he learns to navigate the dynamics of the camp and surroundings and grows from the former baby of the family to independence and self-confidence. A daring rescue mission at the end of the novel will have readers rooting for Julian even as it opens his family’s eyes to his courage and resourcefulness. This autobiographical novel is a well-meaning, fast-paced and often exciting read, though at times the writing feels choppy. It will introduce readers to a not-so-distant period whose echoes are still felt today and inspire admiration for young people who had to be brave despite frightening and lonely odds. (Historical fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-168-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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