The world has no need of a Holocaust tale that presents Nazism as relatively benign.
An old-fashioned boys' adventure tale emerges from an almost unrecognizable retelling of a true Holocaust survival story.
Twelve-year-old Anton is a Jewish peasant in the Ukrainian village of Borshchiv. Anton's grandmother (evidently based on real-life heroine Esther Stermer, never named in the author's note) is sure the Nazis can't be trusted. In the dead of night, Anton and his family sneak away to hide in a nearby cave. Evil Gestapo officer Von Duesen is determined to make Borshchiv Judenfrei, completely free of Jews, and he's sure there's a Jewish family hiding around here somewhere. Von Duesen becomes increasingly unhinged throughout the year as Anton outwits him. He makes mean threats when Anton's grandmother spits in his face, and eventually he turns to murder, horrifying other Nazis by shooting some Jews in cold blood: " ‘Mein Gott, Herr Major...Was haben Sie getan?’ What have you done?" His Gestapo superiors even punish him for the murder, because of potential public relations damage. Of the historical and cultural inaccuracies permeating Anton's adventure, the most egregious is this portrayal of Nazis (who by 1943 in the real Borshchiv had shot or buried alive over 3,000 Jews, including one massacre of 1,800 that took three days, just months before Von Duesen's supposed crime).
The world has no need of a Holocaust tale that presents Nazism as relatively benign. (sources, author's note) (Historical fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: June 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-85782-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Adventures and misadventures, Old West style—but with dinos.
Young Josh needs to up his ride if he’s going to win the Trihorn settlement’s 100th-anniversary Founders’ Day race and meet his hero, Terrordactyl Bill.
Set on the Lost Plains, where ranchers tend to herds of iguanodons, and horses (if there were any) would be easy pickings for the local predators, this series kickoff pits a brash lad and sidekick and schoolmates Sam and Abi against not only the requisite bully, but such fiercer adversaries as attacking pterodactyls. Josh’s first challenge after eagerly entering the race is finding a faster, nimbler steed than his steady but old gallimimus, Plodder. Along comes Charge—an aptly named, if not-quite-fully-trained triceratops with speed, brains, and, it turns out, a streak of loyalty that saves Josh’s bacon both here and in a simultaneously publishing sequel, How To Rope a Giganotosaurus, which prominently features T. Rex’s much larger cousin. Dare adds a map, as well as spot illustrations of rural Western types (Josh and Abi are white, Sam has dark skin and tightly curled hair) astride toothy, brightly patterned dinos. In both adventures Josh weathers regular encounters with dinosaur dung, snot, and gas as well as threats to life and limb to show up the aforementioned bully and emerge a hero.
Adventures and misadventures, Old West style—but with dinos. (Fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4668-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
A grand, giddy, and, at times, literally soaring tale.
Farm animals and French children unite to save the fledgling United States from a scheming mastermind in this airy 18th-century adventure.
Well-informed readers will recognize the titular creatures as the passengers carried into the skies by Montgolfier’s inaugural hot air balloon flight at the Palace of Versailles in 1783. Few, however, will be aware that the three—brilliant aeronautical sheep engineer Bernadette, swashbuckling rooster Pierre, and gifted duck tactician Jean-Luc—went on to lead secret lives righting wrongs and battling evildoers. Notable among the latter is the villainous magician Cagliostro, who, having caught wind of the fact that Benjamin Franklin, a witness to the famous flight, jotted down plans for weaponizing hot air balloons and creating a giant heat ray, has seized both the renowned inventor and his notebook in pursuit of a nefarious plan to make himself King of America. Here, in a mix of prose and profuse graphite drawings that break into mostly wordless sequential panels for action scenes, Phelan lays out a rousing series of chases, clashes, ambushes, and rescues both on and above the ground on the way to a triumphant outcome. The author adds to the animal trio two young humans to do the piloting. He also trots in a host of other historical personages, including Joseph Guillotin (“as sharp a fellow as you are to find in Paris”), Franz Mesmer, King Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette.
A grand, giddy, and, at times, literally soaring tale. (author’s note) (Adventure. 8-11)Pub Date: March 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-291100-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
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