Sometimes Charlotte now, sometimes Clare in 1918, borne back and forth by the boarding school cot. . . "are we so very alike? Were you some particular person only because people recognized you as that?" Then, on a day when Charlotte is Clare (and Clare is Charlotte), she and Clare's younger sister Emily, who knows, must move from the dormitory to lodgings and she must remain in the past. Which, in living with the stuffy Chisel-Browns, their fluttery spinster daughter Agnes and her memories of dead brother Arthur, becomes very much her world: playing with their spillikins and marbles, she might be Agnes indulging Arthur as she is Clare coping with cheeky Emily as she has been older sister to Emma at home. But, she learns from Agnes, Arthur was less than a hero and not unlike Charlotte: the pattern is broken. On Armistice night, literally bedlam, the girls go out alone; as punishment, they are recalled to the dormitory where Charlotte will be in a position to change places with Clare. She leaves with some regret, returns with some relief: schoolmate Margaret, the brilliant erratic one, has known the difference though she cannot define it. And they could not have been alter egos, older enigmatic Sarah Reynolds unwittingly discloses: Clare had died of flu at the war's end and Emily, Sarah's mother, had been waiting for Charlotte to arrive. As she now writes her, enclosing Agnes' and Arthur's playthings. This fills in for Charlotte the time spent by Emma in Winter (1966), which also embodies a time-spanning search-for-self. But Charlotte Sometimes is less involuted; less obsessed, less somber than either Emma or its predecessor The Summer Birds; girls can read it (without knowing the others) as a ghost story laced with boarding school fiendishness and healthy who-am-I's.
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1969
ISBN: 978-1-68137-104-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1969
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A spectacular return to a magical world.
Following the events of Impossible Creatures (2024), a devoted Guardian teams up with a brave princess to fight her power-hungry uncle and save the Archipelago’s dragons from a strange new threat.
Jacques the dragon summons Christopher Forrester back to the Archipelago from the human world: Dragons are dying, and no one knows why. Meanwhile, on the island of Dousha, Princess Anya’s grandfather, King Halam, has been murdered, and her father accused—though she knows he’s innocent. When Christopher and Anya take refuge on the islet of Glimt, the Berserker Nighthand helps them see how their twin missions to save the dragons and free Anya’s father are connected. They work together to create an antidote for the poison that’s killing the dragons and to keep Anya and her father safe from her murderous uncle. Meanwhile, Nighthand and Irian, the part-nereid ocean scholar, pursue their own important secret mission. Divided into three parts—“Castle,” “Dragons,” and “Revenge”—and containing elements of fairy tales, fantasy, and Shakespeare, this story continues the storyline established in the series opener, yet because it introduces new characters and obstacles, it could also stand alone. Dark-blond Anya (“five feet tall and all of it claws”) is a match for white-presenting Christopher, who, though he still misses Mal, finds that “it made a difference to have someone to move through the world with again. A friend changed the feel of the universe.” Mackenzie’s delicate, otherworldly art adorns the text.
A spectacular return to a magical world. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593809907
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
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