A fine, taut novel full of understanding.
Once and Then (2010, 2011) blend into Now in today's Australia as Dr. Felix Salinger, 80, relates his childhood and shows his present to his 11-year-old granddaughter, narrator Zelda.
What occurs in their todays smoothly links the old story of Felix's horrific childhood in Nazi-controlled Poland with sometimes-happy, sometimes-unpleasant events in a small bush town. The girl is staying with Felix because her physician parents are in Darfur to help its people through a modern genocidal catastrophe. Local girls bully Zelda in the opening scene, and readers should be shocked and frightened by this experience. When Felix meets the bullies, in his anger he says, "Don't you know anything?"—a sharp echo of the very young Zelda of decades ago. Today's Zelda is named for her, but it is a weight, since the girl of the present feels she cannot live up to that other, long-dead girl, hanged by the Germans for an act of defiance that allowed Felix to escape the noose. A bush fire of horrendous size, fury and speed tests the mettle of the two, and Gleitzman's description of it is brilliant in its realism. Readers of the first two books will recognize a great deal, and those who have not should read them to gain a fuller picture of the years before and those in which we live.
A fine, taut novel full of understanding. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9378-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
Elsie doesn't know what's worse: living in the garage with your mom, grandmother and uncle behind the house that used to be home or having your father abandon you. Then her mother and uncle also leave, supposedly for jobs. Her miserable situation is all because of the Depression, which is affecting families everywhere. Her best friend, Scout, who is going to be a newspaperman, helps her search for her dad. But when Rev. Hampton takes them to see the dance marathon to show how exploitative it is, clues begin to add up. The Canadian setting and dialogue establish context for the terms hoboes, shantytowns and the phrase, "could you spare a dime." Though today’s readers won’t be familiar with the Depression, dance marathons or references to Bing Crosby, cribbage and Eaton’s catalog, the search for family and relationships in tough times rings true. The evocative title refers to the coins thrown at a favored dance couple. Once past the unappealing cover, readers will find an absorbing and perceptive story. (Historical fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-55469-280-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
It's 1937, and Anya is becoming accustomed to Shanghai. Her family had to flee Odessa in the night after Papa told that ugly policeman he wouldn't join the Communist Party. Now China is home for her whole family: Papa, Mama (a former opera singer), Mama's parents, Babushka and Dedushka, and baby brother Georgi. In Shanghai's French Quarter, they live Jewish lives as if the Japanese weren't advancing on the city. Anya's biggest worry is the prospect of telling her mother she doesn't want to become an opera singer—until the day she finds a baby in the gutter. Will Mama and Papa let her keep the baby? Anya's Shanghai is richly chaotic, polyglot and packed with refugees. Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese and Italian pepper the dialogue. Meanwhile, immigrant Anya happily devours her buckwheat piroshki with chopsticks after Papa has recited the Hebrew blessings over the food. The chaos of the prose is less felicitous; characters whisk between conversations without segue. A delightfully textured—but confusingly rushed—glimpse at a little-remembered period of Jewish history. (Historical fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-37093-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2011
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