This book will break readers’ hearts and then put them back together, in the best way.
Two Dominican children, one in the Dominican Republic and one in the United States, find their lives intertwined following the 9/11 attacks.
Elizabeth, a 12-year-old girl living in the Dominican Republic, seizes each of life’s moments and milks all the joy she can find out of them. Then her life and family as she knows them are brought to a halt after the terrible events of Sept. 11, never to be the same again. Thousands of miles away lives 8-year-old Brandt, who finds his life and family also torn apart by the destruction of the twin towers. Following the attack, Brandt and his 13 year-old brother, Jared, move to Elizabeth’s island to escape the sadness that has consumed their lives since the tragedy. Brandt and Elizabeth find an immediate kindred connection with each other, and they go on to try to heal themselves and their families. Alternating chapters in Elizabeth’s and Brandt’s voices describe how the fall of the twin towers affects two Caribbean families so deeply, making readers feel it too. Beautifully placing moments of loss and grief on the page, Joseph turns tragedy into poetry and gives hope even in the darkest parts of these stories, linking the lives of the characters with almost musical orchestration.
This book will break readers’ hearts and then put them back together, in the best way. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-976-95436-9-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Blue Moon
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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