Entrancing, exciting adventure with airships, pirates, and mysterious flying mammals takes place on an earth with the same geography as ours but different technology. Fifteen-year-old Matt works as cabin boy on the Aurora, a two-million-pound airship kept aloft by gas cells filled with hydrium, the lightest gas in the world. Matt loves the skies; aground, he feels stifled and claustrophobically disconnected from his late father, who was also an Aurora worker. Kate, a rich passenger Matt’s age, boards the Aurora in search of furry, flying sky mammals mentioned in her late grandfather’s journal but unknown to anyone else. A pirate attack forces an emergency landing on an uncharted island in the Pacificus ocean. Matt’s intricate knowledge of his ship and Kate’s cheerfully stubborn determination bring them, scrabbling hard, to victory over the brutal pirates and discovery of the wondrous cloud cats. Full of a sense of air, flying details, and action. (airship diagram) (Fantasy. 10-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-053180-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Eos/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
During WWII in the Philippines, American citizens trapped in the war zone were imprisoned for years by the Japanese, events that provide the context for Hertenstein’s first novel, which focuses on one 14-year-old, Louise. Louise’s minister father is captured in Manila, leaving her and her weak-willed mother to face life alone with other Baptist missionaries on an outlying island. The colony escapes into the hills for a time, but is discovered and interned in a concentration camp. Eventually they are moved to Manila, and later to the notorious camp, Los Banos. One of Louise’s friends is discovered with a radio and executed; food is scarce; people are dying. Hertenstein writes with sensitivity, although the story is often disjointed, e.g., the news that the colony has been taken prisoner comes in a letter Louise writes to her sister, instead of through Louise’s natural-sounding first-person narration, which filled the first 60 pages. When the Japanese disappear from the camp, Louise, now almost 18, rejoices that finally there will be “No bowing, no bayonets,” yet bowing and bayonets, major features of Japanese concentration camps, have hardly been mentioned. A first work that is shakily compelling, often uplifting, and certainly promising. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16381-5
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
A twisty, eccentric novel of Machiavellian intrigue unravels slightly in the resolution, but fans of the author’s previous works (Pictures in the Dark, 1996, etc.) are unlikely to mind. When Ashley begins to get threatening letters and phone calls from a mysterious stalker, she goes to a local fixer for help, only to find that she’s only a pawn in his own machinations. She has always lived a duel life: by day, she’s “every mother’s dream daughter,” faithfully attending school, then rushing home to do a myriad of household chores and care for her ailing mother; by night, she’s a secret graffiti artist, scaling walls and roofs to “tag” surfaces with her spray-painted nom de plume. Her daring midnight adventures eventually catch the attention of Eddie Beale, a legendary tough with a zero tolerance for boredom and a coterie of colorful followers. Eddie “looks after” his friends, but demands slavish obedience in return. Ashley is flattered until she discovers that Eddie is using her in an elaborate scheme to get back at an innocent but uncooperative merchant. The premise is intriguing; Cross, using a variety of narrative voices and circus metaphors, spins the web so tautly that it’s a bit disconcerting when Ashley destroys Eddie’s universe so decisively. The page-turning plot will keep readers involved, though, despite a few undeveloped characters and the weak finish. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1512-0
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
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