From dust jacket (which purportedly contains clues to the pseudonymous author’s identity) to closing page of disguised...
Hidden messages, ambiguous clues, cryptic hints and double entendres crowd chockablock into this puzzle mystery.
Time, and Thymes, play central roles. In line to become the 25th Laird of Thyme, Justin is a 13-year-old scientific genius whose redoubtable mother, Lady Henny, is kidnapped in the wake of discussions with his (seemingly) amnesiac father about actually building a time machine. His ruminations about time travel (conveyed in handwritten notes between each chapter) dovetail with strange arrivals—notably a (seemingly) senile old man who may be long-missing grandpa Lyall Austin Thyme—and investigations that turn up a wealth of suspects in his mother's disappearance. Along with odd timepieces, red herrings galore and images of clue-bearing ransom notes, postcards and email messages, the author chucks in a comically diverse supporting cast. This is led by a sullen, lovesick gorilla and a new cook fresh from the “Café Roman à Clef” in Paris, who in one memorable scene serves up anatomically correct gingerbread men (“You not likings nuts?”). A kidnapper who remains unidentified and at large at the end, a newly minted time machine/motorcycle begging to be tried out and the strong “all is not as it seems” atmosphere throughout pave the way for sequels.
From dust jacket (which purportedly contains clues to the pseudonymous author’s identity) to closing page of disguised notes, a pleaser for fans of reading that requires decoding. (map, cast list) (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9562315-9-8
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Inside Pocket
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
This suspenseful tale of two young women on their own in modern Afghanistan makes riveting reading. Having spent most of her 14 years in England, bookish Yasmine chafes at the restrictions forced on her when her idealistic, university-educated parents bring her to a secluded village. Though Yasmine does meet Tamanna, a friendly young neighbor, she is confined to the house and, until Taliban ruffians arrive to shut it down, a newly built school. Then both of Yasmine’s parents are shot in a drive-by and evacuated to Kandahar, leaving her—and Tamanna, whose brutal uncle has tried and failed to sell her into marriage—in serious danger. They resolve on a desperate stratagem, slipping away not toward Kandahar as their pursuers would expect, but cross country to the Pakistan border. Well stocked with credible cultural detail and enhanced by black-and-white chapter-head photos, their high-tension odyssey leads to a violent climax and an aftermath marked by surprising twists. Readers will be caught up—though it's so misanthropic that many will wonder how anyone, especially women, could tolerate living in that country. (glossary, timeline) (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-55451-267-6
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
In the spirit of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic (1988), with a mix of historical details about the women's-suffrage...
Travels in time give a middle-class girl the courage to fight for both women's suffrage and her own dreams.
Sixteen-year-old Miriam, lover of typography, wants nothing more than to train at her father's print shop. But respectable, well-to-do girls don't work with heavy machinery in 1912 Portland, Ore. Miriam's immigrant Jewish parents, proud of the future they've built from poverty, intend an advantageous marriage for their only living child. If befriending a lovely pair of poor young suffragists isn't enough to make Miriam rebel, what is? Perhaps time travel is what she needs. Miriam is visited by her biblical relative, Serakh, who begs Miriam to travel back in time to help her ancestors. The daughters of Zelophehad seek a favor from Moses, and Miriam is needed to provide them with courage. Miriam pops back and forth between worlds: well-to-do Portland, where she makes morning calls and attends fancy-dress parties; biblical Moab; and the equally exotic, alien environment of suffragist marches and working-class neighborhoods. It takes all three to help her find the initiative, empathy and common sense to help push her toward adulthood.
In the spirit of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic (1988), with a mix of historical details about the women's-suffrage movement and early printing, tied together with a very Jewish thread of historical continuity . (Historical fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-932010-41-1
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Ooligan Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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