The fifth and latest in Marsden’s series about a group of Australian teenagers who find themselves in the middle of a war follows the adolescent guerrilla fighters as they try to survive in an Australia occupied by enemy forces, while inflicting some damage on the enemy along the way. The five kids (who in the first book, Tomorrow, When the War Began, had returned home from a camping trip to find their country occupied and their families gone) have now become fairly experienced soldiers. Although the five are in theory backed up by adult soldiers, the grownups have been out of touch for so long that the teenagers are virtually on their own. Deciding that they have to try and do something, even if there is not much chance of success and even if it means being discovered by the enemy soldiers, the group plans to infiltrate an enemy airfield and blow it up. Miraculously, the group succeeds, and, even more miraculously, they all come out of the experience alive. Between the day-to-day struggle for survival and the desire for revenge that they feel, the personality of each character emerges, displaying moments of bravery, as well as fear, despair, jealousy, and even pettiness. A fascinating portrayal of the dynamics that occur within a group whose members are dependent on each other, this is part survival, part adventure, and part war tale, with plenty of undercurrents of romance and hints of sexual tension thrown into the mix. It is exciting, dramatic, and laced with violence, while also capturing the drudgery and boredom that is part of the group’s daily life. The contrast between the difficult lives they now lead and their former comfortable and peaceful lives as normal Australian teenagers is especially poignant. Something for everyone. (Fiction. 12-16)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-395-96054-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in...
This is almost like a play for 18 voices, as Grimes (Stepping Out with Grandma Mac, not reviewed, etc.) moves her narration among a group of high school students in the Bronx.
The English teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wesley, his response to a month of reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Soon there’s an open-mike poetry reading, sponsored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then later, every week. The chapters in the students’ voices alternate with the poems read by that student, defiant, shy, terrified. All of them, black, Latino, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alienation endemic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appealing voices. Among them: Janelle, who is tired of being called fat; Leslie, who finds friendship in another who has lost her mom; Diondra, who hides her art from her father; Tyrone, who has faith in words and in his “moms”; Devon, whose love for books and jazz gets jeers. Beyond those capsules are rich and complex teens, and their tentative reaching out to each other increases as through the poems they also find more of themselves. Steve writes: “But hey! Joy / is not a crime, though / some people / make it seem so.”
At the end of the term, a new student who is black and Vietnamese finds a morsel of hope that she too will find a place in the poetry. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2569-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
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