A story that richly integrates a fairy tale, history, and a coming-of-age quest.
In this middle-grade fantasy/historical novel, a Russian American girl journeys into folklore to confront witches and save her family.
Vasilisa Petrovna Nikolayeva and her Babka (grandmother) were both named for Vasilisa the Brave, the Russian fairy-tale hero who overcomes Baba Yaga, a fearsome witch. Now 13 years old, Vasilisa still loves to hear her mother and grandmother tell the stories, which link their present-day lives in the 1919 steel town of Edenfall, Pennsylvania, to their homeland. The three cling even closer because Vasilisa’s Papa has been missing since fighting in the trenches near Flanders, presumed dead. The family’s financial difficulties have been lessened by the frightening Mr. Goladyen, also a Russian immigrant, who is pressuring Vasilisa’s mother to marry him. Further, Vasilisa suspects he has something to do with her once-hale grandmother’s sudden decline into confusion and weakness. Meanwhile, Ivan Ivanovich Volkonsky arrives in Edenfall, having promised his dying father to help the elder Vasilisa. Discovering that Mr. Goladyen was his father’s betrayer, Ivan vows revenge. To set things right, young Vasilisa and Ivan must go on a quest to legendary Old Rus, face three Baba Yaga witches, and find an ogre’s egg. In this series opener, Mathison offers two intriguing settings from history and myth, both with their own spooky mysteries, hardships, helpers, and villains. While the Edenfall scenes are well drawn, the storytelling becomes truly compelling in Old Rus, as myth comes vividly to life. The latter setting also better fits the book’s literary, Old World phrasing used throughout (such as, “Always was my daughter thus”), which feels jarring against Edenfall’s slangy American voices (“What a whopper”). Though usually a graceful writer, the author overuses quirk as a transitive verb.
A story that richly integrates a fairy tale, history, and a coming-of-age quest.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73500-374-0
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Starr Creek Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Adler (also with Widener, Lou Gehrig, 1997, etc.) sets his fictional story during the week of July 14, 1932, in the Bronx, when the news items that figure in this tale happened. A boy gets a dime for his birthday, instead of the bicycle he longs for, because it is the Great Depression, and everyone who lives in his neighborhood is poor. While helping his friend Jacob sell newspapers, he discovers that his own father, who leaves the house with a briefcase each day, is selling apples on Webster Avenue along with the other unemployed folk. Jacob takes the narrator to Yankee Stadium with the papers, and people don’t want to hear about the Coney Island fire or the boy who stole so he could get something to eat in jail. They want to hear about Babe Ruth and his 25th homer. As days pass, the narrator keeps selling papers, until the astonishing day when Ruth himself buys a paper from the boy with a five-dollar bill and tells him to keep the change. The acrylic paintings bask in the glow of a storied time, where even row houses and the elevated train have a warm, solid presence. The stadium and Webster Avenue are monuments of memory rather than reality in a style that echoes Thomas Hart Benton’s strong color and exaggerated figures. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201378-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
From Hughes (Enchantment in the Garden, 1997, etc.), a WWII story with big ambitions—many of them realized’set out in the pages of an unusually long picture book. Lenny Levi lives in London with his mother during the Blitz, cherishing the letters from his father at the front, and the medal of the lion and the unicorn his father gave him. When Lenny is evacuated to the country, he finds himself at a huge old manor with three little girls, the lady of the house, and a few servants. He is lonely, teased at school and at home for not eating bacon and for bedwetting, but makes a friend of the young man with one leg he meets in the secret garden on the estate. The garden, thick with roses, also holds a beautiful statue of a unicorn like the one on his medal. As Lenny’s loneliness and fear spiral out of control, a night vision of the unicorn brings him back; his mother comes to take them both to his aunt in Wales, where his father will join them. The storyline, while straightforward, hints at difficult subjects—religious differences, amputees, separation, family disruptions, the terror of bombing, and more—which are then given only cursory treatment. The pictures are splendid: luminous, full-bodied watercolors that capture the horror of London burning, the glory of the countryside, and mists of dreams. It may be difficult for this to find its audience, but children too young for Michelle Magorian’s Good Night, Mr. Tom (1986) might be captured. (Picture book. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7894-2555-6
Page Count: 60
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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