When 13-year-old Lyza cleans her grandfather’s attic and finds a bundle of papers marked “For Lyza Only,” she’s propelled into a modern-day search for pirates’ treasure. After weeks of digging—and suffering bruised wrists, blistered fingers and fatigue—Lyza and her two best friends make an amazing discovery and become local celebrities. Set in 1968, with the Vietnam War, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix in the background, Bryant’s novel-in-verse effectively weaves Lyza’s narrative together with letters from Vietnam, Captain Kidd’s pirate’s log and an occasional poem that stands beautifully on its own. Lyza’s kaleidoscope, a birthday present from her mother, who has walked out on the family, connects readers with the Beatles’s “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” provides the volume’s title and offers a perfect metaphor for a girl learning to see her world in new ways. Readers will fall under the spell of the delicious plot and race ahead to see if Lyza and her friends find buried treasure. The solid bibliography offers good resources for researching pirates, Vietnam and the ’60s. A neat match with Gary Schmidt’s The Wednesday Wars (2007) and Michael Kaufman’s 1968 (2008). (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: May 12, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-84048-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Japanese-American Aki and her family operate an asparagus farm in Westminster, Calif., until they are summarily uprooted and...
Two third-grade girls in California suffer the dehumanizing effects of racial segregation after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1942 in this moving story based on true events in the lives of Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munemitsu.
Japanese-American Aki and her family operate an asparagus farm in Westminster, Calif., until they are summarily uprooted and dispatched to an internment camp in Poston, Ariz., for the duration of World War II. As Aki endures the humiliation and deprivation of the hot, cramped barracks, she wonders if there’s “something wrong with being Japanese.” Sylvia’s Mexican-American family leases the Munemitsu farm. She expects to attend the local school but faces disappointment when authorities assign her to a separate, second-rate school for Mexican kids. In response, Sylvia’s father brings a legal action against the school district arguing against segregation in what eventually becomes a successful landmark case. Their lives intersect after Sylvia finds Aki’s doll, meets her in Poston and sends her letters. Working with material from interviews, Conkling alternates between Aki and Sylvia’s stories, telling them in the third person from the war’s start in 1942 through its end in 1945, with an epilogue updating Sylvia’s story to 1955.Pub Date: July 12, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58246-337-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
A promising debut.
The horrors of the Guatemalan civil war are filtered through the eyes of a boy coming of age.
Set in Chopán in 1981, this verse novel follows the life of Carlos, old enough to feed the chickens but not old enough to wring their necks as the story opens. Carlos’ family and other villagers are introduced in early poems, including Santiago Luc who remembers “a time when there were no soldiers / driving up in jeeps, holding / meetings, making / laws, scattering / bullets into the trees, / hunting guerillas.” On an errand for his mother when soldiers attack, Carlos makes a series of decisions that ultimately save his life but leave him doubting his manliness and bravery. An epilogue of sorts helps tie the main narrative to the present, and the book ends on a hopeful note. In her debut, Brown has chosen an excellent form for exploring the violence and loss of war, but at times, stylistic decisions (most notably attempts at concrete poetry) appear to trump content. While some of the individual poems may be difficult for readers to follow and the frequent references to traditional masculinity may strike some as patriarchal, the use of Spanish is thoughtful, as are references to local flora and fauna. The overall effect is a moving introduction to a subject seldom covered in fiction for youth.
A promising debut. (glossary, author Q&A) (Verse/historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6516-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
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