In a braided narrative about twin girls told in two first-person voices, Pauline and Arlene, 10, have an angry relationship. Pauline works at the cotton mill, and Arlene, with a crippled foot, stays at home to take care of the household tasks, including washing the family’s work-stained clothing. Each believes the other has the easier life, although nothing is easy for these child laborers. Boling shows the hard conditions in the mill’s dawn-to-dusk day and work is never finished at home. Two accidents cause the girls to begin to understand each other: Pauline damages her leg and Arlene must help the local granny woman deliver a new baby in a difficult birth. The counterpoint of the girls’ attitudes and the description of daily life in a mill should be of interest to sympathetic readers who will be relieved when the girls begin to be friends. Easy to read, thanks to the concise text, short chapters, large print, and wide leading. (Historical fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-15-205119-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
A very promising kickoff with arbitrary but intriguingly challenging magic.
A middle schooler discovers both up and down sides to being able to foretell the future.
Members of the Cleary clan in alternating generations have always been granted predictive powers on their 4,444th day of life, and Celia has been eagerly looking forward to her first vision—until, that is, it comes and reveals that cute, quiet classmate Jeffrey is slated to die in a hit-and-run. Weighing her horror against her wise Grammy’s warnings that fate is inexorable, she contrives a way to head off the accident…only to foresee another fatal mishap in his future. And another. By the time she’s saved his life five times in a row, she’s not only exhausted, but crushing on the hapless lad. (As, unsurprisingly, he is on her.) Reintgen generally keeps the tone of his series opener light, so even after Celia discovers that there’s ultimately a tragic price for her intervention, the ensuing funeral service is marked by as much laughter as sorrow. The author surrounds his frantic but good-hearted protagonist with a particularly sturdy supporting cast that includes gratifyingly cooperative friends as well as her Grammy and loving, if nonmagical, mom. There don’t seem to be many Cleary men around; perhaps that and certain other curious elements, like a chart listing particular Cleary specialties with names such as Dreamwalker and Grimdark, will be addressed in future entries. Main characters read as White.
A very promising kickoff with arbitrary but intriguingly challenging magic. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66590-357-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions.
The efforts of six New Jersey kids to prevent the Nazis from winning World War II continue in this sequel to Westfallen (2024).
In 1944, Alice, Lawrence, and Artie struggle to correct their catastrophic error that, as Alice repeatedly has it, “DESTROYED THE FUTURE.” In 2023, Frances and Henry desperately research the changed history that finds the U.S. transformed into the Nazi-controlled tributary state of Westfallen. Jewish Lukas is largely confined, unable to help them or reach the magic shed that houses the radio that allows the kids to communicate across time, putting him at risk of losing his memories. Meanwhile, in 1944, Lawrence collects scrap metal alongside a kid who grows up to be a patient in the Home for Incurables, where Henry works in 2023. Could that kid hold the key to restoring the timeline? In this volume, Lawrence and Frances join Alice and Henry as first-person narrators, depriving Lukas and Artie of narrative agency. This lack is particularly distressing in Lukas’ case, as his isolation is affecting his personality. It falls to Henry and Alice to prod him into action—which is unfortunate for a novel that never names the Holocaust and omits persecution of the Jews from Alice’s father’s explanation of Nazi ideology (although antisemitism is an obvious feature of life in this alternate timeline). The crackling pace can’t obscure these lapses. Alice, Artie, and Frances are white, Lawrence is Black, and biracial Henry is Black and white.
Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781665950848
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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