The Petticoat Party series opens with a disaster: Not long after the Brown family—Mama, Papa, Amelia, and Phoebe—leave by wagon train for Oregon, all but three of the men are killed in a buffalo stampede; the survivors are badly injured. Led by the formidable Miss Simpson, the women decide to press on to their destination. But the Oregon Trail is a difficult trek (readers know this part: hostile Indians, rugged terrain, rough river crossing, food and water shortages, the ominous badlands) that has defeated many an able-bodied male. These women take charge of their lives and face the hazardous passage with courage and determination; by the book's end they have reached the halfway point in their journey and resolve to finish the last 1,400 miles to Oregon completely on their own. Phoebe, a smart and spunky narrator, wisely sees through the male heroics that nearly killed them all. A good adventure tale by Karr (In The Kaiser's Clutch, p. 1430, etc.) and a real consciousness-raiser to boot. (Fiction. 10+)
Pub Date: March 30, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-027151-5
Page Count: 202
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
PROFILES
An outstanding new edition of this popular modern classic (Newbery Award, 1961), with an introduction by Zena Sutherland and...
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0-395-53680-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
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