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SUMMER OF THE PIKE

Name: SUMMER OF THE PIKE
Author: Jutta Richter
ISBN: 1-57131-671-X

by Jutta Richter & illustrated by Quint Buchholz & translated by Anna Brailovsky ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2006

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This quiet, literary novel marks the auspicious American debut for Richter, an acclaimed writer for children and adults in her native Germany. Set on the wooded grounds of a castle and seen through the eyes of a young girl, Anna, it is a sensitive depiction of loss, friendship and family. Anna grew up with the estate’s tenants, Daniel and Lucas, and the three are as close as any siblings could be. At the same time, she’s disgusted by the boys’ fascination with catching a magnificent pike in the forbidden moat. This obsession takes on added significance as the boys’ mother slowly succumbs to cancer over the summer. Neither exploitative nor sanitized, this is a penetrating portrait of one of life’s most difficult and messiest passages. Anna’s mother—who is nursing the dying Gisela—drowns her sorrow in drink, cigarettes and tears. In the meantime, Anna must look on as the mother she finds emotionally distant provides the intimacy and comfort to the grieving boys that she longs for herself. While there’s some initial confusion about the identity of the characters and their relationships, the spare, continuous text has been smoothly translated. This smart, subtle and sympathetic offering will appeal to sophisticated teen readers, as well as their adult counterparts. (Fiction. YA)

Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2006

ISBN: 1-57131-671-X

Page Count: 132

Publisher: Milkweed

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
BEYOND THE STATION LIES THE SEA
by Jutta Richter and translated by Anna Brailovsky

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FUDGE-A-MANIA

by Judy Blume ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1990

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A well-loved author brings together, on a Maine vacation, characters from two of her books. Peter's parents have assured him that though Sheila ("The Great") Tubman and her family will be nearby, they'll have their own house; but instead, they find a shared arrangement in which the two families become thoroughly intertwined—which suits everyone but the curmudgeonly Peter. Irrepressible little brother Fudge, now five, is planning to marry Sheila, who agrees to babysit with Peter's toddler sister; there's a romance between the grandparents in the two families; and the wholesome good fun, including a neighborhood baseball game featuring an aging celebrity player, seems more important than Sheila and Peter's halfhearted vendetta. The story's a bit tame (no controversies here), but often amusingly true to life and with enough comic episodes to satisfy fans.