An engaging and instructive adventure that emphasizes humans’ collective ability to rise above life’s challenges.
This novel sees a secluded tribe thrive on forgiveness and a dedication to building emotional bridges.
A meteor struck a valley long ago, creating the crater called Elgiba. The Mahari tribe has made a pilgrimage there for a celebration of the planting season. It has also been seven generations since Hu Mani, or the Great Ruin involving war and environmental despoliation. Heglen is the tribe’s cóntagé, which combines priest, historian, and storyteller. He and his wife, Gerda, have a young son named Matego. Sons are precious to the Mahari, for not even King Josef and Queen Hashti have one yet as heir to the throne. A certain tribesman adopted from the warlike Shimani people, the Principal Hunter known as Stebin, knows this and hopes to corrupt the peaceful Mahari. He lures Matego away from his family during the festival, but fails to kidnap him. Later, tragedy befalls the tribe and Stebin takes to the wilds to recruit warriors for his long-simmering revenge scheme. Despite this danger, King Josef travels to the Word Tree, an ancient oak that’s inscribed with Mahari lineage and wisdom. Will he return hale, hearty, and filled with knowledge to help guide his people, including his latest child, yet to be born? In this generations-spanning saga, Underwood (Growing Lavender and Other Poems, 2007, etc.) illuminates a society stripped down to the essentials of relationships, art, learning, and faith. Stebin’s sly villainy mirrors that of a real-world sociopath, as he frequently subverts the Mahari rule that requires three witnesses to convict someone before the Council. He will never understand that “for every reason to hate, there is a higher reason to love.” Narrative tension rises when Queen Hashti gives birth to Prince Rahabem, who knows only love and is deeply vulnerable. The author also generates mystery with the notion of the Other Side, which harbors great truths for the Mahari. When the tribe’s essence is threatened, the means to carry on comes from the least expected source. Colorful images by debut illustrator Harlukowicz beautify the text.
An engaging and instructive adventure that emphasizes humans’ collective ability to rise above life’s challenges.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73220-950-3
Page Count: 508
Publisher: Iris
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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