Katy is continuing her education at a mainstream high school in this follow-up to Katy’s New World (2010). This is a true sequel, relying on the prior books for an introduction to characters and the situation that has Katy, an Old Order Mennonite, trying to function in a more worldly milieu. It is not the classes or schoolwork that provides the conflict here, but the vast difference in social and cultural assumptions and the tug of war between Katy’s family and beliefs with the more typical way of teenagers in the modern world. When Katy is selected to represent the sophomore class as the homecoming attendant, the pull of peers, popularity and the longing to participate grow stronger. Katy’s father is marrying Mrs. Graber, a widow, and he, plus the entire Mennonite community, are distracted by these celebratory preparations, leaving Katy to make her decisions on her own. Readers who enjoyed the first two books or who are intrigued by the moral dilemma between personal choice and adhering to a religious code are clearly the intended audience. (Fiction. 10-15)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-310-72287-8
Page Count: 206
Publisher: Zondervan
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Powerful and resonant.
Four 12-year-old Sephardic Jewish girls in different time periods leave their homelands but carry their religion, culture, language, music, and heritage with them.
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella’s expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 sends Benvenida fleeing from Toledo with her family, though she promises to remember where she came from. In 1923, Reina celebrates Turkish independence with her longtime friend and neighbor, a Muslim boy, causing her strict father to disown her and send her to live with an aunt in Cuba as punishment. Reina brings her mother’s oud with her and passes it on to Alegra, her daughter, who serves as a brigadista in Castro’s literacy campaign before fleeing to the U.S. in 1961. In Miami in 2003, Paloma, Alegra’s daughter, who has an Afro-Cuban dad, is excited to travel to Spain with her family to explore their roots. They find a miraculous connection in Toledo. Woven through all four girls’ stories is the same Ladino song (included with an English translation); as Paloma says, “I’m connected to those who came before me through the power of the words we speak, the words we write, the words we sing, the words in which we tell our dreams.” Behar’s diligent research and her personal connection to this history, as described in a moving author’s note, shine through this story of generations of girls who use music and language to survive, tell their stories, and connect with past and future.
Powerful and resonant. (sources) (Historical fiction. 10-15)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593323403
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development.
A portal fantasy survivor story from an established devotional writer.
Fourteen-year-old Eva’s maternal grandmother lives on a grand estate in England; Eva and her academic parents live in New Haven, Connecticut. When she and Mum finally visit Carrick Hall, Eva is alternately resentful at what she’s missed and overjoyed to connect with sometimes aloof Grandmother. Alongside questions of Eva’s family history, the summer is permeated by a greater mystery surrounding the work of fictional children’s fantasy writer A.H.W. Clifton, who wrote a Narnialike series that Eva adores. As it happens, Grandmother was one of several children who entered and ruled Ternival, the world of Clifton’s books; the others perished in 1952, and Grandmother hasn’t recovered. The Narnia influences are strong—Eva’s grandmother is the Susan figure who’s repudiated both magic and God—and the ensuing trauma has created rifts that echo through her relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. An early narrative implication that Eva will visit Ternival to set things right barely materializes in this series opener; meanwhile, the religious parable overwhelms the magic elements as the story winds on. The serviceable plot is weakened by shallow characterization. Little backstory appears other than that which immediately concerns the plot, and Eva tends to respond emotionally as the story requires—resentful when her seething silence is required, immediately trusting toward characters readers need to trust. Major characters are cued white.
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development. (author’s note, map, author Q&A) (Religious fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593194454
Page Count: 384
Publisher: WaterBrook
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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