Tiny Tim and The Ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge

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Tiny Tim and The Ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge

Name: Tiny Tim and The Ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge
Author: Norman Whaler
ISBN: 978-1-68254-292-7

THE SEQUEL TO A CHRISTMAS CAROL

by Norman Whaler ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 7, 2016

A religious sequel to Dickens’ holiday classic and an ideal stocking stuffer.

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A debut novella and sequel to A Christmas Carol explores the adult life of Tiny Tim.

In 1857 in London, it’s a week before Christmas and former curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge has died. In Charles Dickens’ 1843 classic, Scrooge didn’t renounce his skinflint ways until three ghosts visited him on Christmas Eve. One of the people who benefited by his transformation was a crippled boy named Tiny Tim. Tim grew up under Scrooge’s wing, healing in the process and becoming a clerk alongside his father, Bob Cratchit, at the firm Scrooge & Marley & Cratchit. The death of his mentor, however, sends Tim into a depression that robs him of faith in himself and God. Meanwhile, Becky, Tim’s childhood sweetheart, has been shunned by her own family after her marriage to a cruel man fell apart. She and her young son, James, struggle to make ends meet by selling holly on London’s chilly streets. They are barely able to eat or pay their rent, and yet Becky remains hopeful, realizing that it “was the habit of despair that ultimately condemned a soul.” When Christmas Eve arrives, Tim stays late at the offices only to be joined by a familiar, if ghostly, face. Whaler captures the essence of Dickens’ characters in brief strokes, as in the description of Scrooge, who has “white hair glistening on his head and brow above a timeworn face of cavernous folds.” The author depicts the starkness of Tim’s craving for both Scrooge and Becky with pointed metaphors, including when he “felt strangely detached as if his caring was being poured onto the ground like a pitcher of water.” The main difference between this sequel and Dickens’ classic is Whaler’s extended theme of the individual placing faith in God, who “allows difficulties in people’s lives to see their faith grow, to prepare us for a higher level of faith.” There are four original songs by the author—including lyrics and sheet music—after the story.

A religious sequel to Dickens’ holiday classic and an ideal stocking stuffer.

Pub Date: June 7, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-68254-292-7

Page Count: 98

Publisher: Tate Publishing

Review Posted Online: July 22, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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- APPRECIATIONS
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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.