In this book for young readers, three children grow up in a hurry as the U.S. Civil War rages.
Hannah, 13, lives on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. She, her younger brother, Willy, and their friend Charlie, who is sweet on Hannah, have always spent their time helping on their farms and playing cards with Crazy, a hermit who lives in a nearby cave. But it’s the middle of the Civil War, the effects of which everyone is feeling. Charlie’s older brother died at Gettysburg, his father is an invalid thanks to war wounds, and Charlie is a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute, yearning to get into the fight. Now, the Yankee Army is moving through Virginia, burning farms as they go, and though Hannah’s family is against slavery, they know the federal troops will not spare their farm. Hannah finds herself left behind with her parents as Willy joins Mosby’s raiders and Charlie and his fellow cadets are conscripted into the Confederate army under Gen. John Breckinridge. Hannah’s formerly idyllic country childhood is shattered, and now her courage and ability to survive are tested as the ravages of war arrive on her doorstep. In this, her third book for young people about the Civil War, author Johnson shows war from an adolescent’s point of view. The emotional development comes through for engaging and believable characters as they experience not just war, but also the normal changes that children experience during their teenage years. The writing flows well, with enough detail to be informative without seeming didactic. There’s one minor bump, however, when Willy runs off, with no mention of whether his parents were worried, which seems odd. But overall, the story is a convincing one, presenting the realities of a war zone well, though with a light touch appropriate for a young audience.
A well-told story of coming of age in war-torn Virginia.
Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0989435642
Page Count: 146
Publisher: eFrog Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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