Tragedy and hope collide in this promising middle-grade debut.
Japanese native Yuriko Ishikawa lives in Hiroshima with Papa, Aunt Kimiko, and annoying cousin Genji during the turmoil of World War II in Burkinshaw’s historical novel.
War seeps its way into every aspect of Yuriko’s life. Constant air-raid sirens and drills interrupt her daydreams, and the drone of “B-sans” (American B-29s) flying overhead fills her ears. She’s clumsy with exercises using bamboo spears as weapons, and when she and her best friend, Machiko, play jazz on the record player, they must do it in secret because all things American are banned. At home, a double wedding is planned, and new family members—Papa’s second wife, Sumiyo-san, and Aunt Kimiko’s second husband, Akira-san—move in. Will she ever have time alone with Papa again? Despite the necessity of participating in the war effort, Yuriko and her family do their best with normal activities, such as celebrating Oshagatsu (New Year’s) and the Cherry Blossom Festival. When a shocking family secret is revealed, Yuriko is shattered, but nothing can prepare her or her community for the unthinkable devastation about to hit their city. Chapter epigraphs of radio-show transcripts, newspaper headlines, and propaganda posters set the chilling tone. Told with reverence and authenticity, Yuriko’s journey is inspired by the author’s mother’s real-life experiences growing up in Hiroshima and surviving that tragic day on Aug. 6, 1945.
Tragedy and hope collide in this promising middle-grade debut. (afterword, bibliography, glossary, statistics about Hiroshima) (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63450-693-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
A terrific premise buried beneath problem-novel tropes.
A gaggle of eighth graders find the coolest clubhouse ever.
Fulfilling the fantasies of anyone who’s ever constructed a fort in their bedroom or elsewhere, Korman hands his five middle schoolers a fully stocked bomb shelter constructed decades ago in the local woods by an eccentric tycoon and lost until a hurricane exposes the entrance. So, how to keep the hideout secret from interfering grown-ups—and, more particularly, from scary teen psychopath Jaeger Devlin? The challenge is tougher still when everyone in the central cast is saddled with something: C.J. struggles to hide injuries inflicted by the unstable stepdad his likewise abused mother persists in enabling; Jason is both caught in the middle of a vicious divorce and unable to stand up to his controlling girlfriend; Evan is not only abandoned by drug-abusing parents, but sees his big brother going to the bad thanks to Jaeger’s influence; Mitchell struggles with OCD–fueled anxieties and superstitions; and so forth. How to keep a story overtaxed with issues and conflicts from turning into a dreary slog? Spoiler alert: Neither the author nor his characters ultimately prove equal to the challenge. With the possible exception of Ricky Molina, one of the multiple narrators, everyone seems to be White.
A terrific premise buried beneath problem-novel tropes. (resources, author’s note) (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-62914-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure
A Prohibition-era child enlists a gifted pickpocket and a pair of budding circus performers in a clever ruse to save her ancestral home from being stolen by developers.
Rundell sets her iron-jawed protagonist on a seemingly impossible quest: to break into the ramshackle Hudson River castle from which her grieving grandfather has been abruptly evicted by unscrupulous con man Victor Sorrotore and recover a fabulously valuable hidden emerald. Laying out an elaborate scheme in a notebook that itself turns out to be an integral part of the ensuing caper, Vita, only slowed by a bout with polio years before, enlists a team of helpers. Silk, a light-fingered orphan, aspiring aerialist Samuel Kawadza, and Arkady, a Russian lad with a remarkable affinity for and with animals, all join her in a series of expeditions, mostly nocturnal, through and under Manhattan. The city never comes to life the way the human characters do (Vita, for instance, “had six kinds of smile, and five of them were real”) but often does have a tangible presence, and notwithstanding Vita’s encounter with a (rather anachronistically styled) “Latina” librarian, period attitudes toward race and class are convincingly drawn. Vita, Silk, and Arkady all present white; Samuel, a Shona immigrant from Southern Rhodesia, is the only primary character of color. Santoso’s vignettes of, mostly, animals and small items add occasional visual grace notes.
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure . (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1948-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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