by Jim Ruddle ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 2014
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A heartwarming adventure tale about sailing, boyhood and 1850s America.
Ruddle’s debut novel centers on Luke Constance, a plucky young boy living in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1858. Luke, an extremely precocious and well-read 15-year-old kid, lost both of his parents years ago, so he lives with his grandparents Mike and Ellen. Mike owns and runs a business on a boat, the Mary Constance, and the book’s early chapters chronicle entertaining tales of Luke working and playing on it. There are also charming stories of Luke’s everyday life in Marblehead, including mischief involving teachers at his school and neighbors in town. The plot picks up after Luke falls asleep on the Mary Constance, waking just as two crooks hijack the boat and sail it out to sea. After he’s discovered, Luke must figure out how to keep himself and the crooks alive, as the hijackers’ sailing knowledge is limited and the New England waters and weather are anything but predictable. In this heartwarming tale about growing up in New England in the mid-19th century, Ruddle includes plenty of interesting information about the sea and the colorful people who work on it: “The fellows out on the fishing boats believe stuff that can make you roll your eyes. Like if you get a hook in your finger, you should stick the hook in something—a rail or mast, maybe—because that will heal your finger quicker.” It’s also packed full of historical information, which the author weaves seamlessly into the narrative; at one point, for example, Luke talks about national strife and the just-invented telegraph: “You could work that telegraph until the wires started to smoke, and it wouldn’t make folks love each other.”
An educational, engaging story about 19th-century New England that’s particularly suited for readers passionate about sailing.
Pub Date: April 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1937484200
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Amika Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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