In 1944, Dart and Tamar, code names for two undercover operatives for Britain’s Special Operations Executive, parachute into Holland to reorganize the Dutch resistance movement. In 1955, a 15-year-old British girl named Tamar receives a box from her grandfather who has committed suicide. In it are clues to her grandfather’s past and her own identity, but she must go on a journey to make sense of the clues. In Peet’s Carnegie Medal–winning work, he tells the interwoven stories of Tamar the spy and Tamar the teenager in beautifully visualized episodes. Meticulously crafted scenes develop this long, complex and elegant work that is both a historical novel and a reflection on history—how a young girl’s life has been shaped by a past she never knew. Readers will be torn: They’ll want to slow down and savor the gorgeously detailed prose, but speed up to find out what happens next. Simply superb. (notes, acknowledgments) (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-7636-3488-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
Meticulous pacing and finely nuanced characters underpin the author's gift for affecting prose that illuminates the...
A boring summer stretches ahead of Ari, who at 15 feels hemmed in by a life filled with rules and family secrets.
He doesn't know why his older brother is in prison, since his parents and adult sisters refuse to talk about it. His father also keeps his experience in Vietnam locked up inside. On a whim, Ari heads to the town swimming pool, where a boy he's never met offers to teach him to swim. Ari, a loner who's good in a fight, is caught off guard by the self-assured, artistic Dante. The two develop an easy friendship, ribbing each other about who is more Mexican, discussing life's big questions, and wondering when they'll be old enough to take on the world. An accident near the end of summer complicates their friendship while bringing their families closer. Sáenz's interplay of poetic and ordinary speech beautifully captures this transitional time: " 'That's a very Dante question,' I said. 'That's a very Ari answer,' he said.… For a few minutes I wished that Dante and I lived in the universe of boys instead of the universe of almost-men." Plot elements come together at the midpoint as Ari, adding up the parts of his life, begins to define himself.
Meticulous pacing and finely nuanced characters underpin the author's gift for affecting prose that illuminates the struggles within relationships. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0892-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Tragic, devastating, horrifying, enthralling.
In the third entry in a pitch-black fantasy quartet, everyone acts with the best of intentions—and everything goes terribly, terribly wrong.
Katharine, newly Queen Crowned of Fennbirn, just wants a peaceful, prosperous reign, but the people fear her, the vengeful spirits strengthening her urge ever more dreadful deeds, and even the eldritch mist protecting the island has seemingly turned against its inhabitants. Jules Milone wishes only to learn more about her cursed legion gift, but the warriors and oracles insist she lead their rebellion, defying the prophecy that she may be the island’s doom. Mirabella and Arsinoe try desperately to conform to the patriarchal culture of their mainland refuge, but visions of a centuries-gone Blue Queen demand their return. The barrage of intrigue, betrayals, spells, portents, and grisly violence unleashed in this volume almost overwhelms, as multiple viewpoints follow several intertwining plotlines, both epic and intimate, across present and past. Blake’s (One Dark Throne, 2017, etc.) elegant, understated prose unfolds new facets of the island’s culture, revealing sinister truths behind pious legends. The richly-drawn characters default to white and mostly heterosexual (although at least one culture celebrates bisexuality). Some take comfort in male lovers living or dead, but the narrative is mostly driven by the complicated relationships between strong, vibrant women: mothers and daughters, friends and rivals, Goddess and priestess, and—above all—sisters.
Tragic, devastating, horrifying, enthralling. (cast of characters, map) (Fantasy. 14 -adult)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-268614-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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