Irreverent and sassy, Tara-My-Stara (as her hip mom calls her) is determined to be a “regular Canadian,” not a hyphenated one. Gilmore (Mina’s Spring of Colors, not reviewed, etc.) has lived in India, England, and Canada, just like Rohini, Tara’s mom, and she writes realistically about this family from India who don’t emphasize their cultural background to any great degree. Tara’s Social Studies teacher and some of the kids in her class want to define her as different (in positive and negative ways), but she resists this notion, knowing that she has lived in Ottawa all her life. Her 15-year-old typical teenager’s life is upset by two other events. She meets Jeff, a young man who has just moved to town, and her paternal grandmother, a staunch Indian Nationalist, comes to visit for the first time. Naniji seems most critical of her son’s wife, Rohini, her Western ways, and her lack of traditional respect, but she is probably saddened by the fact that her son chose to live in Canada with his bride. Tara takes her mother’s side and refuses to warm up to her grandmother until a school assignment encourages Tara to interview her. When she learns more about her family’s role in Gandhi’s “Quit India” campaign in 1942, she begins to realize that her grandmother is more than just a stern old woman who can’t adjust to new ways. Tara’s first-person narrative flippantly relates the ups and downs of contemporary family life and the on-again, off-again relationships with Jeff and Erin, her longtime best friend, but her teenage voice tends to veer toward an overuse of words like “crappy.” This independent heroine wrestles with the themes of cultural identity and personal individuality, adolescent issues in Canada and the US. Development of some minor characters is weak (Raj, the father, never comes to life), but Tara, Rohini, and Naniji are strong women who fight back against the tone of didacticism that sometimes floats to the surface. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6475-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
From England’s Children’s Laureate, a searing WWI-era tale of a close extended family repeatedly struck by adversity and injustice. On vigil in the trenches, 17-year-old Thomas Peaceful looks back at a childhood marked by guilt over his father’s death, anger at the shabby treatment his strong-minded mother receives from the local squire and others—and deep devotion to her, to his brain-damaged brother Big Joe, and especially to his other older brother Charlie, whom he has followed into the army by lying about his age. Weaving telling incidents together, Morpurgo surrounds the Peacefuls with mean-spirited people at home, and devastating wartime experiences on the front, ultimately setting readers up for a final travesty following Charlie’s refusal of an order to abandon his badly wounded brother. Themes and small-town class issues here may find some resonance on this side of the pond, but the particular cultural and historical context will distance the story from American readers—particularly as the pace is deliberate, and the author’s hints about where it’s all heading are too rare and subtle to create much suspense. (Fiction. 11-13, adult)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63648-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2004
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