A solid, heartwarming tale about an orphan’s travails.
A young boy in 1827 struggles to keep his new home in this debut children’s book.
After losing his Russian father and Aleut mother in the same year, Misha Alexandrov must travel from Archangel, Alaska, to the Ross Fortress in Northern California. He is accompanying Dimitri Makarova, his father’s best friend, who is starting work as a carpenter in the settlement. But Misha’s stay in his new home is almost instantly beset by a run of bad luck, and Stepan Tarasov, the construction foreman, becomes convinced that the boy is a jinx. Tarasov insists that Misha must prove his worth to the settlement or else he will be sent back to Alaska and an uncertain future. Misha has found a community with Chilan, a Kashaya Native American boy who is his first friend, and Kanoa, the Hawaiian man who rooms with Misha and Dimitri. Misha does not want to return to Alaska, but there are few opportunities for a young boy to prove himself. He must take whatever work he can get, endear himself to his fellow settlers, and avoid the wrath of Tarasov if he wants to stay in his new surroundings. Tanaka’s story sheds light on a little-known component of California colonization and the multicultural settlement at the real Fort Ross in what is now Sonoma County. Though the novel uses the classic children’s-literature trope of an orphan, it works hard to emphasize the importance of families of choice and underscores the many ways that a boy can find mentors and guardians. The book’s main flaw is its pacing, as it seems to be in a rush to find completion, which comes at the cost of a fuller sense of the cast. Scenes that could be expanded and that would show Misha’s growth as a character to greater effect, such as the initial mistrust felt by the local villagers toward the boy, are rushed through in a handful of pages. The story is at its best when focusing on characterization, such as explaining Dimitri’s reasons for taking in Misha or fleshing out Kanoa.
A solid, heartwarming tale about an orphan’s travails.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-54484-6
Page Count: 152
Publisher: River's End Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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