When Tom Mullen was one, his mother abandoned him in a toy store in Liverpool, England. Now 13 and three quarters, his life consists of moving from one fozzy (foster home) to another while trying to take care of the developmentally disabled Brian, who has been like a brother to him. The excavation of a new school and rumors of its secret beneath the earth interrupt this monotony. Tom is drawn to the spot and discovers a gravesite that transports him to Ireland in 1847, and into the Irish Potato Famine. The boy happens upon a drowning victim and saves the life of Tully Monaghan, the spitting image of himself. Tom is taken in by the Monaghan family, which also comprises Hannah, with whom Tom find himself smitten, and Brendan, who eerily resembles Brian. In this superbly crafted time-split novel, Tom is compelled—although he does not know why at first—to help the Monaghans escape their hunger and suffering. He makes use of his present-day skills to survive the past. Throughout the fast-paced story, coincidences between the past and present accumulate until they form a bridge that leads Tom to his real identity and helps him understand what “family” means. Loosely based on the discovery of a mass grave in Liverpool, the characters and situations here ring true. A riveting adventure. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2000
ISBN: 0-374-32765-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000
A girl’s interest in family history overlaps a coming-of-age story about her vestigial understanding of her mother after death, and her own awareness of self and place in the world. Junior high-school student Carrie Schmidt identifies strongly with the missing girls of 1967’s headlines about runaways. Carrie’s mother is dead and she has just moved in with her grandmother, Mutti, who embarrasses her with her foreign accent and ways. Carrie’s ideal is her friend Mona’s mother, a “professional” who dresses properly, smells good, and knows how to set out a table; readers will grasp the mother’s superficiality, even though Carrie, at first, does not. Mutti has terror in her past, and tells Carrie stories of the Jews in WWII Vienna, and of subsequent events in nine concentration camps; these are mined under the premise that Carrie needs stories for “dream” material and her interest in so-called lucid dreaming, a diverting backdrop that deepens the story without overwhelming it. Mutti’s gripping, terrible tales and the return of an old friend who raised Carrie’s mother when she was sent to Scotland at age nine awaken in Carrie a connection to her current family, to her ancestry, and, ultimately, to a stronger sense of self. This uncommon novel from Metzger (Ellen’s Case, 1995, etc.) steps out of the genre of historical fiction to tell a story as significant to contemporary readers as to the inhabitants of the era it evokes. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-87777-8
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
PLB 0-7868-2439-5 From Karr (Man of the Family, p. 1312, etc.), a historical novel that is remarkably cheerful, considering that among its key elements are grave-robbing and a hideous criminal on the prowl. In New York City in 1840, Matthew loses his whole family to cholera. Trying to keep body and soul together, he answers an advertisement for an assistant to a remarkable fellow, Dr. Asa B. Cornwall, phrenologist. Dr. ABC, as he is known, studies the cranial features of people, and deduces by the lobes and bumps on their heads their personalities and characteristics; he’s writing his magnum opus to prove his theories. Matthew takes to the larger-than-life doctor; they travel to Philadelphia, London, Paris, and the south of France, attempting’surreptitiously—to dig up famous skulls for the doctor’s research. All the while, in the smoothly suspenseful plotting, a vicious and mysterious stranger with a scar follows them, putting Matthew in danger and haunting his nightmares. The thrilling denouement takes place on St. Helena and involves the body of Napoleon himself; this novel is rich in period color and good old-fashioned derring-do. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7868-0506-4
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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