by Lucy Jago ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 2011
Cecily Perryn, 13, a lowly poultry girl in 1596 England, discovers a jeweled pendant enclosing a woman’s portrait in the Earl of Montacute’s hencoops. Her strange find is quickly eclipsed by other matters: Young boys, including her friend William, have been disappearing. Seeking William, Cess makes her way to the town of Yeovil, where Jasper, the innkeeper’s son, becomes her reluctant helper. Their search uncovers a plot against Queen Elizabeth I, soon to visit Montacute House. Meanwhile, Cess attracts unwanted attention from the Earl’s sinister son after her cousin fabricates a story that Cess practices witchcraft—truer than she knows. Cess’ friend, the healer Edith Mildmay, falsely accused of bringing plague and exiled, is a witch, though of a benign Druid-esque variety, and initiates Cess into their practices. A rich portrait of rural life in Elizabethan times emerges—convincingly detailed and seamlessly woven into the narrative fabric—as readers uncover the intertwined secrets of pendant, plot and plague. While Cess’ mundane world is entirely believable and always interesting, the witchcraft, with its generically contemporary, New Age feel, is less persuasive. It’s only when we lose the witches that the story comes to life. (Historical fantasy. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 19, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4231-3843-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
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by Mitali Perkins ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2010
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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by Mitali Perkins ; illustrated by Khoa Le
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by Jack Gantos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2011
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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