In the newest entry in this action-packed series, Namioka's two wandering samurai are shipwrecked on the northern island of Ezo (modern Hokkaido) and find themselves trying to avert a battle between a new Japanese settlement and the indigenous Ainu. As in their previous adventures, Zenta and Matsuzo have a mystery to solve: a bear has been attacking the Japanese, and it soon becomes evident that it has been trained to do so. By whom? There are suspects on both sides. The two ronin are given complex character traits—young Matsuzo's optimistic enthusiasm plays off Zenta's moodiness and experience, often to comic effect—and the author throws up a few red herrings to complicate the otherwise simple, quickly paced plot. There is some violence—the culprits and several bears die—but it's emphasized less than the theme of working toward peace. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: April 30, 1992
ISBN: 0-06-020288-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1992
After witnessing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, Daniel is suddenly transported, at age 14, from his comfortable life in Frankfurt to a Polish ghetto, then to Auschwitz and Buchenwald—losing most of his family along the way, seeing Nazi brutality of both the casual and the calculated kind, and recording atrocities with a smuggled camera (``What has happened to me?...Who am I? Where am I going?''). Matas, explicating an exhibit of photos and other materials at the new United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, creates a convincing composite youth and experience—fictional but carefully based on survivors' accounts. It's a savage story with no attempt to soften the culpability of the German people; Daniel's profound anger is easier to understand than is his father's compassion or his sister's plea to ``chose love. Always choose love.'' Daniel survives to be reunited, after the war, with his wife-to-be, but his dying friend's last word echoes beyond the happy ending: ``Remember...'' An unusual undertaking, effectively carried out. Chronology; glossary. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-590-46920-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
Its focus firmly on the details of mountaineering in the French Alps and the Himalayas—mechanics, technique, lore, social milieu—a simplistic novel about an unlikely superheroine (though already making record-breaking climbs while still in her teens, her only major injury occurs early on when a guide hazes her by giving her a double load) who achieves worldwide recognition for her exploits in the 1950's. The tacked-on plot—minor setbacks, a romance with another climber—has less depth than most comic strips and reads like an old-fashioned adulatory biography. Roper is obviously well-acquainted with climbing, and for anyone interested in the subject there's a wealth of information here; he should have omitted the feeble story and added an index. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-316-75606-7
Page Count: 188
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1991
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