The obstacles inherent in finding true love, fighting terminal cancer, reconciling a broken family and maintaining the family farm are resolved—all within a few weeks—in this latest schmaltz-fest from Rice (Home Fires, 1995, etc.). Having just been given a clean bill of health after battling a brain tumor, 37-year-old Sarah Talbot is treated for her birthday to an airplane ride over rural New York. Her pilot, the dashing Will Burke, takes a fast shine to her rhapsodic happiness, which alchemizes his leaden gloom into golden hope. That’s just what Will needs since the disintegration of his family: After his son Fred drowned (Will blames himself—he’s a trained Navy rescue operative), he and his wife divorced, he quit the Navy to become a charter pilot, and his teenage daughter Susan lost, or seemed to lose, her marbles. Sarah and Will meet again by chance at a country fair, where Sarah hires him to take her back to Elk Island for Thanksgiving. Dangling off the coast of Maine, this remote spot was Sarah’s childhood refuge; her teenage son and father now live there. Sarah longs to bring the runaway Mike back home with her and to reconcile with the father who’s never forgiven her for leaving the island. Meanwhile, Will’s daughter Susan stows away for the trip to escape the dreariness of life with her tight-lipped mother and pretentious stepfather. The island is a fantasy for all concerned. Though they barely know each other, Sarah and Will fall madly in love; Susan’s mesmerized by everything—island life, Sarah, and handsome Mike. When Mike falls through an iced-over pond, Will even manages to save him. But nothing this good, of course, can last. An unbelievable death walk down the aisle tops off this syrupy concoction. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 12, 1999
ISBN: 0-553-11063-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1998
Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90512-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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