Cassie Tucker and her family, friends, and neighbors in rural Blue Hill, Nebraska, are all anticipating the arrival of the 20th century, just a few months away. But Cassie’s excitement is tempered by the unexpected news that her newly orphaned cousin from Montana, Evan, will be coming to live with them; when she learns that he will be taking over her bedroom, it’s almost unbearable. Evan, however, finds a place in Cassie’s affection, and his independent, free-thinking ways bother Cassie’s father, a preacher, more than they bother her. Evan comes through, too, when the first of several tragedies strikes. Before the century ends, a late fall blizzard blows in and it’s a killer, of both people and livestock. Ruckman packs the story with informative details about the not-so-long-ago past, and with a solid cast of believable characters. Along with swift pacing, the book will please contemporary readers, facing their own turn-of-the-century, and a new millennium, too. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-32514-2
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
A colorless adventure through time as an orphan discovers something about his past. Fifth-grader Dominic is on a class trip to Ellis Island, thinking about how he has outgrown his unfashionable shoes and how different he is from his well-off classmates. A friendless orphan and frequently relocated foster child, Dominic has recently made an embarrassing mistake that makes him eager for the next upheaval. He longs for a family of his own; after he is accidentally locked into the park building, he makes contact with a long-dead relative and travels back to Italy in 1908. There he meets three orphan boys; desperately poor and hungry, two of them eventually make passage to the US on a ship, after illness kills the other. The boys are needy, but Dominic marvels at their sense of family, and it is eventually clear that they are his ancestors. Dominic returns, with precious knowledge of his roots, to a brighter present in the form of a new foster family. Woodruff includes details about the adventure that make it compelling, but the story is drily told and often heavy-handed. (map, glossary, bibliography) (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-590-48245-9
Page Count: 181
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
A richly detailed account of a little-known event in World War II.
An escape from war-torn Britain becomes a struggle for survival when a ship is torpedoed off the coast of England.
In June 1940, Great Britain formed the Children’s Overseas Reception Board to transfer Britain’s children away from the encroaching war to safe harbors around the world. Over 200,000 children between the ages of 5 and 15 applied for just 20,000 spots. Thirteen-year-old Kenneth Sparks is chosen to travel on the City of Benares, a luxury ocean liner, to Canada, where he will live with his aunt in Edmonton. The children are distracted by rich food, new toys, and soft beds, but the accompanying convoy of war ships is a constant reminder that while the blitzkrieg might be behind them, German torpedoes are a very present threat. Three days into their voyage, the Benares is hit, sending crew and passengers into the lifeboats and the water. Ken, along with a handful of others, all white except 32 Asian sailors of varied ethnicity (called Lascars at the time), must survive with little water, food, or shelter if they are to make it out alive. Told in verse, the story of Lifeboat 12 is lyrical, terrifying, and even at times funny. Hood makes effective use of line breaks and punctuation to wrap readers up in Ken’s tale. Copious research, including interviews with the real Ken Sparks, went into the making of this fictional recasting of a true story of survival. Backmatter offers further information, including the racism experienced by the Lascars.
A richly detailed account of a little-known event in World War II. (Historical verse fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6883-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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