by Laurence Yep ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2006
It is notable especially for the attention paid to the experience of San Francisco’s Chinese immigrants, and a good choice...
Eight-year-old Henry Travis and nine-year-old Chin, son of the family houseboy, experience the events of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 that destroyed both the Travis’s wealthy home and the Chin’s tenement apartment.
Yep intersperses the fiction of Henry and Chin’s experiences with short chapters of facts about the earthquake and subsequent fire. This is a timely reminder of a historical disaster that turned over 2000 acres of city into a wasteland. Each chapter is headed with a time and place to help less than proficient readers keep track of the narrative strands. Simple sentence structure and the use of present tense throughout make this a very accessible introduction. With little character development, the focus is on the what rather than the who. Still, this is solid historical fiction full of details about the times and backed up with an afterword explaining the author’s connection and suggesting sources for further reading.
It is notable especially for the attention paid to the experience of San Francisco’s Chinese immigrants, and a good choice for reluctant readers. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-027524-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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by Lois Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1989
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
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
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by Katherine Applegate ; illustrated by Charles Santoso ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2017
A deceptively simple, tender tale in which respect, resilience, and hope triumph.
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Generations of human and animal families grow and change, seen from the point of view of the red oak Wishing Tree that shelters them all.
Most trees are introverts at heart. So says Red, who is over 200 years old and should know. Not to mention that they have complicated relationships with humans. But this tree also has perspective on its animal friends and people who live within its purview—not just witnessing, but ultimately telling the tales of young people coming to this country alone or with family. An Irish woman named Maeve is the first, and a young 10-year-old Muslim girl named Samar is the most recent. Red becomes the repository for generations of wishes; this includes both observing Samar’s longing wish and sporting the hurtful word that another young person carves into their bark as a protest to Samar’s family’s presence. (Red is monoecious, they explain, with both male and female flowers.) Newbery medalist Applegate succeeds at interweaving an immigrant story with an animated natural world and having it all make sense. As Red observes, animals compete for resources just as humans do, and nature is not always pretty or fair or kind. This swiftly moving yet contemplative read is great for early middle grade, reluctant or tentative readers, or precocious younger students.
A deceptively simple, tender tale in which respect, resilience, and hope triumph. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-04322-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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