A touching story of a teen’s determination to find the power inside her.
In 1861, a young woman has few choices.
Sixteen-year-old Kate Harding, whose family left London for the colony of Victoria on Vancouver Island, has passions for reading and everything medical. She aspires to help her father, a physician, but the family has fallen on hard times, and her mother’s plan is to marry her off to a wealthy Irish Catholic businessman twice Kate’s age. Sister Mary, a nun at her school, nurtures Kate’s intellectual curiosity with a steady supply of books and tells her about Elizabeth Blackwell, a woman who graduated medical school in New York. Meanwhile, 14-year-old Lucy, the new housemaid from the nearby Songish tribe, becomes a friend and ally. When she learns from Lucy that Native women—in a society Kate’s White European community considers inferior—can be healers, Kate further questions gender restrictions she’s been taught. Then smallpox arrives, bringing devastation. This story offers readers a snapshot of life during the gold rush in British Columbia, including the intense bigotry faced by Black and Indigenous people as well as the devastating effects of colonizers’ alcohol and disease. Modern readers may feel frustrated with Kate’s occasional passivity, which is understandable given the norms of the time; overall, Lucy comes across as the more compelling character. This novel resonates with both sadness and hope, and the past comes alive with connections to today’s issues.
A touching story of a teen’s determination to find the power inside her. (map, historical notes, author interview) (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-88995-636-0
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A smart, timely outing.
Two teens connect through a mysterious podcast in this sophomore effort by British author Oseman (Solitaire, 2015).
Frances Janvier is a 17-year-old British-Ethiopian head girl who is so driven to get into Cambridge that she mostly forgoes friendships for schoolwork. Her only self-indulgence is listening to and creating fan art for the podcast Universe City, “a…show about a suit-wearing student detective looking for a way to escape a sci-fi, monster-infested university.” Aled Last is a quiet white boy who identifies as “partly asexual.” When Frances discovers that Aled is the secret creator of Universe City, the two embark on a passionate, platonic relationship based on their joint love of pop culture. Their bond is complicated by Aled’s controlling mother and by Frances’ previous crush on Aled’s twin sister, Carys, who ran away last year and disappeared. When Aled’s identity is accidently leaked to the Universe City fandom, he severs his relationship with Frances, leaving her questioning her Cambridge goals and determined to win back his affection, no matter what the cost. Frances’ narration is keenly intelligent; she takes mordant pleasure in using an Indian friend’s ID to get into a club despite the fact they look nothing alike: “Gotta love white people.” Though the social-media–suffused plot occasionally lags, the main characters’ realistic relationship accurately depicts current issues of gender, race, and class.
A smart, timely outing. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-233571-5
Page Count: 496
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful.
January 1945: as Russians advance through East Prussia, four teens’ lives converge in hopes of escape.
Returning to the successful formula of her highly lauded debut, Between Shades of Gray (2011), Sepetys combines research (described in extensive backmatter) with well-crafted fiction to bring to life another little-known story: the sinking (from Soviet torpedoes) of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff. Told in four alternating voices—Lithuanian nurse Joana, Polish Emilia, Prussian forger Florian, and German soldier Alfred—with often contemporary cadences, this stints on neither history nor fiction. The three sympathetic refugees and their motley companions (especially an orphaned boy and an elderly shoemaker) make it clear that while the Gustloff was a German ship full of German civilians and soldiers during World War II, its sinking was still a tragedy. Only Alfred, stationed on the Gustloff, lacks sympathy; almost a caricature, he is self-delusional, unlikable, a Hitler worshiper. As a vehicle for exposition, however, and a reminder of Germany’s role in the war, he serves an invaluable purpose that almost makes up for the mustache-twirling quality of his petty villainy. The inevitability of the ending (including the loss of several characters) doesn’t change its poignancy, and the short chapters and slowly revealed back stories for each character guarantee the pages keep turning.
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful. (author’s note, research and sources, maps) (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-16030-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
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