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MISHA ALEXANDROV

Name: MISHA ALEXANDROV
Author: Jan Karol Tanaka
ISBN: 978-0-692-54484-6

by Jan Karol Tanaka ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 9, 2015

A solid, heartwarming tale about an orphan’s travails.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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NEVER FLINCH
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YOU LIKE IT DARKER
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Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.