Uncommon elements give this time-travel novel a charming spin.
After moving to a new house, a girl finds a portal to its previous residents from a century ago.
Not only has Maddy’s mom remarried and gotten pregnant, but Dan, her new, annoying stepdad, has moved them from Toronto to an old octagonal house in the countryside. On the mend from a bad bout of bronchitis and still tackling her asthma, the tween begins exploring her unusual house. A black cat helps her discover a door in the woodshed’s loft, and once opened, it becomes a portal from her present in 2001 to the house’s previous residents, nearly 100 years earlier. Through numerous trips back and forth between these time periods, Maddy observes Eva, a girl with consumption, and meets Eva’s brother, Clarence, who goes by Clare. In this quiet and evenly paced blend of fantasy and historical fiction, Maddy notes the similarities between Eva’s and her own health conditions and becomes determined to work with Clare to save Eva. A soap-making scheme introduces readers to farm life at the beginning of the 20th century. But as problems also mount in her own time, Maddy realizes that she’s been neglecting the real people who need her most. Although never didactic, this gentle narration, enhanced with quaint black-line drawings, emphasizes building family relationships and accepting responsibility for one’s actions. Characters follow a White default.
Uncommon elements give this time-travel novel a charming spin. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-988761-51-0
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Common Deer Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel.
Sandy and his family, Japanese Canadians, experience hatred and incarceration during World War II.
Sandy Saito loves baseball, and the Vancouver Asahi ballplayers are his heroes. But when they lose in the 1941 semifinals, Sandy’s dad calls it a bad omen. Sure enough, in December 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor in the U.S. The Canadian government begins to ban Japanese people from certain areas, moving them to “dormitories” and setting a curfew. Sandy wants to spend time with his father, but as a doctor, his dad is busy, often sneaking out past curfew to work. One night Papa is taken to “where he [is] needed most,” and the family is forced into an internment camp. Life at the camp isn’t easy, and even with some of the Asahi players playing ball there, it just isn’t the same. Trying to understand and find joy again, Sandy struggles with his new reality and relationship with his father. Based on the true experiences of Japanese Canadians and the Vancouver Asahi team, this graphic novel is a glimpse of how their lives were affected by WWII. The end is a bit abrupt, but it’s still an inspiring and sweet look at how baseball helped them through hardship. The illustrations are all in a sepia tone, giving it an antique look and conveying the emotions and struggles. None of the illustrations of their experiences are overly graphic, making it a good introduction to this upsetting topic for middle-grade readers.
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel. (afterword, further resources) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0334-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
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