A lively historical novel about a young lacemaker at Versailles just before the French Revolution. Eleven-year-old Isabelle makes lace like her mother and grandmother. Bringing lace to the palace at Versailles allows her to be seen by the beautiful Queen, Marie Antoinette, who invites her to become companion to the queen’s daughter Thérèse. Isabelle then lives a split existence, frantically making lace with her struggling family in the mornings and then dressed in fine clothes and spending the afternoon with Thérèse and her companion, Ernestine. Isabelle’s brother George works in the Marquis de Lafayette’s stables; he tries to open Isabelle’s eyes to the desperate state of the populace; Isabelle, in turn, tries to explain to Thérèse that not everyone lives like a princess. The excesses (and odors) of the French court are seen through Isabelle’s perceptions in this first-person narrative full of description and intriguing insight into the period. Endnotes explain that Ernestine actually did live at Versailles as companion to Thèrése, though many of the other characters in the story are fictitious. Fascinating. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 1-4169-1920-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2007
Another literary pacesetter that will leave Reynolds’ readers wanting more.
Sunny Lancaster is a home-schooled almost-13-year-old torn between duty to run and passion for dance in the latest compulsively readable installment of Reynolds’ lauded Track series.
On the surface, African-American Sunny appears to have a wealthy, comfortable life that his less-fortunate teammates on the Defenders cannot help but envy. Privilege, however, cannot hide pain, and Sunny feels smothered by guilt over his mother’s death immediately after his birth and crushed beneath the weight of his father’s expectations for him to become the marathon runner that his beloved mother no longer can be. Once again, Reynolds cements his reputation as a distinguished chronicler of the adolescent condition by presenting readers with a winsome-yet-complex character whose voice feels as fresh as it is distinctive, spontaneously breaking out into onomatopoeic riffs that underscore his sense of music and rhythm. Living in an empty house with colorless walls and unfulfilled familial expectations cannot dim the effervescent nature of a protagonist who names his diary to make it feel more personal, employs charts and graphs to help him find the bravery to forge his own path as a discus-throwing dancer, and finds artistic inspiration in the musical West Side Story. Defenders introduced in earlier novels receive scant treatment, but new characters, such as Sunny’s blue-haired teacher/dance instructor, Aurelia, are vibrant and three-dimensional. Main characters’ races are not explicitly mentioned, implying a black default.
Another literary pacesetter that will leave Reynolds’ readers wanting more. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5021-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A rich, enthralling historical mystery that engages and educates.
Siblings decode familial and wartime secrets in 1940 England.
Headstrong 14-year-old Lizzie Novis refuses to believe that her mother, a U.S. embassy clerk who was working in Poland, is dead. After fleeing from her grandmother—who’s attempting to bring her back to America—Lizzie locates her 19-year-old brother, Jakob, a Cambridge mathematician who’s stationed at the clandestine British intelligence site called Bletchley Park. Hiding from her grandmother’s estate steward, Lizzie becomes a messenger at Bletchley Park, ferrying letters across the grounds while Jakob attempts to both break the ciphers generated by the German Enigma machines and help his sister face the reality of their mother’s likely fate. With a suspicious MI5 agent inquiring about Mum and clues and codes piling up, the siblings, whose late father was “Polish Jewish British,” eventually decipher the truth. Shared narrative duties between the siblings effectively juxtapose the measured Jakob with the spirited Lizzie. Lizzie’s directness is repeatedly attributed to her being “half American,” which proves tiresome, but Jakob’s development from reserved to risk-tolerant provides welcome nuance. The authors introduce and carefully explain a variety of decoding methodologies, inspiring readers to attempt their own. A thoughtful and entertaining historical note identifies the key figures who appear in the book, such as Alan Turing, as well as the real-life bases for the fictional characters. Interspersed photos and images of ephemera help situate the narrative’s time period.
A rich, enthralling historical mystery that engages and educates. (Historical mystery. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780593527542
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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