Although its feminist message is a bit heavy-handed, this novel, set in 1677, is an engaging and fun story about 12-year-old Meg, the only surviving child of London bookseller Miles Moore. Although Meg is motherless, she leads quite a happy life, helping out in the bookstore, reading countless books, and eagerly lapping up the conversation of authors like John Dryden, playwrights like Aphra Behn, London’s foremost female dramatist, and the other assorted literati who frequent the store. Since she will inherit all her father’s books and copyrights, Meg knows that she will have a good dowry and therefore have more choices than many other young women. “I would not live my life like other women, bound to dreary husbands and household duties. Instead, I would marry into the trade and be a bookseller like my father.” But Meg sees all her plans for the future going up in smoke when her father marries Susannah Beckwith. And as though it weren’t bad enough that Susannah has stolen her father’s attention and affection, she also insists on teaching Meg how to be a proper young lady. To Meg’s dismay, that means less time in the store, less time reading, and all too much time on inane pursuits like needlework. Meg deeply resents her stepmother’s interference and is hurt by her father’s seeming betrayal of his daughter in favor of his new wife. Only when Susannah has a baby and when she also discovers she has a talent for writing does Meg soften towards her stepmother. She realizes that if she wants to ensure that her future will hold something other than a loveless marriage, she has to take a certain amount of control over her own life. Readers will enjoy the period details (booksellers will especially savor the tidbits about bookstore life of the late-17th century.) Like Catherine Called Birdy (1994), an involving story of a feisty and rebellious girl who refuses to conform to the accepted and expected roles of females in their societies. Oddly, in a book for kids, the books listed in the afterword are all adult books. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2000
ISBN: 0-374-30449-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Taking a page from Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (1990), Kehret (I’m Not Who You Think I Am, p. 223, etc.) pens a similar story of a girl who goes to sea. Determined not to be separated from her seriously ill mother, Emma, 12, embarks on a plan that results in the adventure of a lifetime. Sent to live with Aunt Martha and her arrogant son, Odolf, Emma carefully plots her escape. Disguising herself in her cousin’s used clothes, she sneaks out while the household slumbers and stows away on what she believes to be a ship carrying her parents from England to the warmer climate of France. Instead, the ship is the evil, ill-fated Black Lightning, under the command of the notorious Captain Beacon. Emma finds herself sharing quarters with a crew of filthy, surly, dangerous men. When a fierce storm swamps the ship, Emma desperately seizes her chance to escape, drifting for several days and nights aboard a hatch cover and finally carried to land somewhere on the coast of Africa. Hungry, thirsty, and alone, Emma faces the daunting prospect of slow starvation, but survives due to a relationship she builds with a band of chimpanzees. This page-turning adventure story shows evidence of solid research and experienced plotting—the pacing is breathless. Kehret paints a starkly realistic portrait, complete with sounds and smells of the difficult and unpleasant life aboard ship. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-03416-2
Page Count: 138
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
PLB 0-531-33140-7 Ketcham’s first book is based on an allegedly true story of a childhood incident in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. It starts with a couple of pages regaling the Bach home and all the Johanns in the family, who made their fame through music. After his father’s death, Johann Sebastian goes to live with his brother, Johann Christoph, where he boasts that he is the best organist in the world. Johann Christoph contradicts him: “Old Adam Reincken is the best.” So Johann Sebastian sets out to hear the master himself. In fact, he is humbled to tears, but there is hope that he will be the world’s best organist one day. Johann Sebastian emerges as little more than a brat, Reincken as more of a suggestion than a character. Bush’s illustrations are most transporting when offering details of the landscape, but his protagonist is too impish to give the story much authority. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30140-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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