A strong sense of place and an appealing protagonist cannot overcome outdated stereotypes of Indigenous people.
In pre–World War I Australia, 12-year-old Savannah Dawson wants to be a whaler like her father.
She knows whaling is in her blood, however, as a girl, she is stuck as a cook’s helper. Given the chance, she would gladly follow in her father’s footsteps even though that is how both her brothers lost their lives. Her mother has also passed away, and her absence is palpable. Through her new friend, Figgie, an Indigenous boy whose real name is Calagun—Savannah renames him after an ineffectual attempt to pronounce it—she learns about Indigenous beliefs positioning orcas as the guardians of the Earth and the need to live in harmony with nature. As she comprehends the balance between whaling and the beasts of the deep, she has increasingly cryptic dreams. Meanwhile, industrialization is encroaching thanks to wealthy American investor Jacob Bittermen, who wants to introduce factory processes to whaling. Savannah, who is White by default, is a well-developed, three-dimensional character who starts off only caring about her own goals but grows through her friendships. Whaling terms and Australian slang add atmosphere and pull readers deeper into the colorful world. Unfortunately, the Indigenous characters feed into tropes of mystical guides. Figgie is not as well rounded as Savannah; his actions support her journey of self-discovery, but apart from that, he does not appear to have a purpose in the story.
A strong sense of place and an appealing protagonist cannot overcome outdated stereotypes of Indigenous people. (list of abbreviations, glossary) (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: July 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64603-070-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Fitzroy Books
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Too short to allow for any real character development or complex moral thought; don’t recruit this one for your library.
A young man serves in a secret unit during the Vietnam War.
Danny Manion is an impulsive hothead, one who brawls with his brothers even though he knows it disappoints his polio survivor father. After he steals a motorcycle, his wrestling coach and idol, Mr. Macias, arranges with the judge for Danny to join the Army, with Mr. Macias as his colonel. But instead of serving in a noncombat position in Thailand like he tells his father, Danny is actually part of a special ops unit illegally fighting in Laos. Through injuries and missions gone wrong, Danny grows and learns from his colonel and his fellow soldiers—even though they all come across like teen sociopaths, with statements like “Truth is, there are no rules here. It’s glorious,” and “We’re here to kill everything.” Danny exhibits more concern about a fellow soldier shooting an elephant than about killing people, and the Meo characters who help their unit aren't even called by their proper names. With the violent nature of war as depicted, the overall slimness of the novel, and without any historical notes to provide context, Danny’s story feels underdeveloped and overly simplistic even for younger teens. Danny and his family are white; his close friend and fellow soldier is named Lopez.
Too short to allow for any real character development or complex moral thought; don’t recruit this one for your library. (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-545-86162-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Pass on this one.
Historical fiction about the high-fashion tailoring studio where Nazis enslaved prisoners on the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Ella is a yellow star–wearing prisoner at the camp she calls Birchwood, where she’s managed to get a labor assignment in the tailoring studio. Though the “prominent” (a fellow prisoner empowered to boss around other inmates) can be cruel, it’s a safer task than many of the jobs available at the death camp. Ella’s lied about her age to get the position, but she hasn’t had to lie about her talent; she is genuinely a smashing seamstress. Ella’s sometimes-unbelievable naiveté about the camp (she asks when she can write to her grandmother at home) enables her to willfully ignore how much her dressmaking enthusiasm smacks of collaboration. Not so her friend Rose, a political prisoner and fellow dressmaker. Unlike Ella, Rose understands that their supplies are stolen from the Nazi’s victims. Though Ella’s eyes eventually open to horror, especially as Rose’s health falters and Birchwood descends into chaos in the waning days of the war, her unreliability as a narrator makes the camps appear less horrific than the reality. The avoidance of specific references to Jews or Germany in a story about atrocities that targeted very specific groups of people strips this Holocaust narrative of both believability and historical accuracy.
Pass on this one. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0104-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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