An intrepid lover of stories and her two best friends crack the case of the missing library books.
Viviani and her family, based in fact, live in the superintendent’s apartment of the New York Public Library in the 1920s. She and her brothers and friends solved a spooky mystery in their first outing, The Story Collector (2018). Now the librarians are dealing with the theft of several rare and irreplaceable medical books. Noticing a pattern to the thefts, Viviani is determined to solve the case. At the same time, she is excited to enter a writing contest for the New York Times about friendship. With Millions of Cats as her inspiration, the proudly self-styled “story collector” wins the contest. Tubb portrays the 11-year-old as an unabashed book enthusiast with a fondness for codes. The major characters all present as white with exceptions in the form of friends Eva from Armenia and Merit from Egypt—with Viviani, they become a trio known as the Moppets. With librarians who possess a special shushing power, a tuberculosis epidemic, and a theatrical outing, readers get a brief glimpse of period New York City life. Each chapter is labeled with a Dewey Decimal subject and number as well as see-also references. The answers to the codes that help solve the crime are revealed in the back of the book. (Black-and-white full-page line drawings not seen.)
Patterns, codes, mysteries, and storytelling are an appealing middle-grade draw. (author’s note) (Historical mystery. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30109-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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The closing of her favorite swimming pool opens 11-year-old Gloriana Hemphill’s eyes to the ugliness of racism in a small Mississippi town in 1964.
Glory can’t believe it… the Hanging Moss Community Pool is closing right before her July Fourth birthday. Not only that, she finds out the closure’s not for the claimed repairs needed, but so Negroes can’t swim there. Tensions have been building since “Freedom Workers” from the North started shaking up status quo, and Glory finds herself embroiled in it when her new, white friend from Ohio boldly drinks from the “Colored Only” fountain. The Hemphills’ African-American maid, Emma, a mother figure to Glory and her sister Jesslyn, tells her, “Don’t be worrying about what you can’t fix, Glory honey.” But Glory does, becoming an activist herself when she writes an indignant letter to the newspaper likening “hateful prejudice” to “dog doo” that makes her preacher papa proud. When she’s not saving the world, reading Nancy Drew or eating Dreamsicles, Glory shares the heartache of being the kid sister of a preoccupied teenager, friendship gone awry and the terrible cost of blabbing people’s secrets… mostly in a humorously sassy first-person voice.
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl who takes a stand. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-33180-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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