At the close of World War I, a Texas sharecropper’s daughter painfully learns about loss and suffering when the Spanish Influenza kills those she loves. Seventeen-year-old Mercy wonders how to “break free and make a life for herself without marrying some fool boy” and ending up saddled with four kids like her Mama. When she’s forced to work on another farm, Mercy gains strength from Mama’s advice to look for heart signs. Likewise, she copes with being the lone flu survivor of her family by heeding Mama’s exhortation to think about “the good that might be coming.” When she’s hired by the Wilder family and falls in love with the two young children and their older stepbrother, she’s determined not to end up like Mama—until she realizes she’s just like Mama and must follow her heart. Mercy tells her story in a gentle, cadenced voice filled with youthful hope, simple wisdom and gritty endurance. Perfect similes capture the flavor of Mercy’s bittersweet life during the epidemic of 1918. (Fiction. 12-18)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8855-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A slow-moving but compelling tale of a queer Jewish boy battling antisemitism and the supernatural.
Young immigrant Alter Rosen lives in Chicago; it’s 1893, and the World’s Fair is in town.
Seventeen-year-old Alter longs to enjoy everything the White City has to offer him, but as a Romanian refugee in the United States, he feels it is his responsibility to earn enough money to bring his mother and his sisters over from Europe. Jewish people in the Russian empire have long been the targets and victims of government-sanctioned violence, and while life in the U.S. is still not ideal for Jews, it’s much safer. So, Alter tries his best to make an honest living and save his money. But when several Jewish boys from the tenements on Maxwell Street, where he has rented a room, end up missing or dead—including Alter’s own roommate and secret crush, Yakov—Alter knows he has to find out the truth about their fates. A highly detailed historical landscape paired with the fantastical element of the dybbuk from ancient Jewish folklore, one of whom possesses Alter, provide a solid base for the book’s leisurely paced and original narrative. Readers will become immersed in Alter’s world, rooting for his survival, hoping for his reunion with his family, and wishing for him to find the love that he deserves. An author’s note and glossary add valuable context. Main characters are White and Jewish.
A slow-moving but compelling tale of a queer Jewish boy battling antisemitism and the supernatural. (Historical thriller. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-335-40250-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dynamically reckons with the real-life ramifications of someone who refuses to grow up.
A grim, modern-day manifestation of the Peter Pan tale drawn from subtle, dark elements in the original text.
Wendy Darling is a sweet, naïve 17-year-old who just moved to Chicago. One night, Peter Pan comes through her open window, expecting an empty house and instead becoming enamored with the girl inside. Wendy herself is immediately enchanted by Peter, whose boyish charm and good looks convince her to join him for a night on the town along with his spunky and snappy ex-girlfriend Tinkerbelle. During the course of a single night, Wendy runs into more of Peter’s connections, including a collection of orphans he houses off the grid, a Detective Hook eager to bring him down, and other counterparts from the source material (including the racist caricature of a Native girl, gracefully realized here as a three-dimensional young Ojibwe woman). But as the night goes on and Peter’s facade grows more transparent, the frightful truth at his center threatens the safety of everyone involved. Eschewing literal magic, Ancrum’s remix is spellbinding and psychologically compelling despite a slower-moving middle. The haunting truth surrounding Peter is well earned and disturbing, a perfect—and bleak—transformation of the character for the 21st century. Wendy is Black, Peter and Tink are White, and the supporting cast represents myriad racial and queer identities.
Dynamically reckons with the real-life ramifications of someone who refuses to grow up. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: June 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-26526-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Imprint
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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