A book that invites close reading, this will spark interest in the plight of all refugees.
An 11-year-old Jewish girl travels alone from Berlin to Great Britain in the Kindertransport of 1938.
In a follow-up to Good-bye Marianne (1998), Watts and Shoemaker continue their adaptation of Watts’ 2000 novel, Remember Me. On the cover, a girl sits forlornly on a suitcase under the bold black title against a background of Nazi red. Endpapers offer a hopeful hint of her mother’s soft embrace as she looks at the starry night sky. Sandwiched in between is a straightforward, first-person telling of Marianne Kohn’s story as she holds out hope of a reunion with her parents. Author and illustrator show their collaborative finesse in a wonderfully rendered marriage between text and art. Nine chapters shape Marianne’s journey, each beginning with a map on a stark black page that seems to loom over a year of wartime bleakness. Marianne is in the dark about her future, literally and figuratively. Fuzzily drawn, gray-toned panels make her fear and loneliness palpable. She’s billeted in one unhappy situation after another in London and Wales, often with sponsors scornful of refugees. She’s renamed by one woman who “wants me to call her ‘Mother’ and turn me into her dead child.” Thought bubbles clearly convey Marianne’s deepest concerns while she stumbles through conversations in English.
A book that invites close reading, this will spark interest in the plight of all refugees. (glossary) (Graphic historical fiction. 10-16)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-926890-02-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Tradewind Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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BOOK TO SCREEN
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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