Solid work, featuring a strong-minded protagonist bent on doing the best he can with what he’s been given.
Abolitionists square off against slave catchers in this well-crafted debut, complicating the schemes of a stranded young sailor.
Kidnapped off the streets of New Bedford by his harsh half-brother, held until his whaler had departed and then forced to work in a local cotton mill, Lucky Valera, a 14-year-old orphan of Cape Verdean descent, finds his efforts to escape stymied at every turn. His attachments to his coworker and new friend Daniel, a fugitive slave, and Emmeline, activist daughter of a Quaker abolitionist, involve him in plans to protect the large number of fugitives in town from approaching slave catchers. Along with a few references to “darkies” and “dark devils” that evoke the era’s negative racial attitudes, Russell folds in enough historical detail to establish a sense of setting. Without burdening the tale with info dumps, she lays out a basic view of the conflict between the recently passed Fugitive Slave Act and the moral stance of those who opposed it. The author also provides ample tests of character for Lucky and Daniel alike as she speeds her tale to a climactic escape and happy resolution after Lucky’s half-sib treacherously tries to collect a reward for both lads and is himself briefly seized.
Solid work, featuring a strong-minded protagonist bent on doing the best he can with what he’s been given. (afterword, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56145-597-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
There's a lot better out there than this. (Steampunk. 11-13)
A teeming cast, a mare’s nest of plotlines and characters with ambiguous agendas muddle this sequel to The Brimstone Key (2010).
The morass of steampunk and fantasy conventions includes giant armored battle suits and flying cars, zombies, magical weapons and shapechanging Faerie familiars. In the midst of this, the four young Grey Griffins begin to drift apart. Natalia makes new friends, and Ernie, still smarting over events from the previous volume, splits off to lead a band of costumed vigilantes. Meanwhile, Harley becomes the assistant to a renowned inventor who is wasting away from an unidentified illness, and Max has confusing visions of the supposedly evil Otto Von Strife. This last character’s conveniently available notebook reveals that he’s building a world-threatening Paragon Engine. Led by mysterious instructor Obadiah Strange, the Grey Griffins reunite first on a failed mission that leaves them watching as Von Strife’s teleporting associate Smoke whisks away both Strange and a magical (?) relic called the Schrödinger Box, then to mount an attack on the Paragon Engine that ends in a cliffhanger. Readers hoping to keep track of who’s who and what’s where will definitely want to start with the previous episode, but they are likely to feel that they’ve wasted their time after a climactic revelation renders the entire plot nonsensical.
There's a lot better out there than this. (Steampunk. 11-13)Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-04519-3
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers will really feel blasts of wind, water and flying debris in this disaster tale—at least until the narrative cuts off in mid-howl. As (fictional) Hurricane Emily moves toward Florida and his father, an itinerant contractor specializing in weather-disaster prep and repairs, heads for its expected landfall, Chase takes up temporary residence at a “farm” that turns out to be a circus’ winter quarters. Hardly has he reported to the local school, though, than the storm makes a sudden turn and surge that strands him, along with classmates Nicole and Rashawn, in a wrecked bus on a crumbling levee. Writing in clipped prose and dialogue, Smith quickly plunges the three refugees into a desperate struggle to survive floods, darkness, howling gales and even an encounter with a wily alligator on the way to what they hope will be safety. Though the author’s practice of repeatedly cutting away to other characters’ points of view distracts from rather than tightens the suspense, and he abruptly chops off the narrative on a cliffhanger as the storm’s eye passes, Chase and his friends get repeated opportunities to show that they’re made of sturdy stuff. Since they are left sharing a barn with an elephant who is about to give birth as a vicious escaped leopard roams outside, readers are really going to want to find out what happens next. (Adventure. 11-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-08175-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
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