The gifted author of Hating Alison Ashley (1985) makes a bow to Little Women in an incisive, often hilarious portrait of four sisters growing up in the Australia of the late 1940's, with both parallels and contrasts to Alcott's novel enriching her story. Like the Marches', the Mellings' poverty is a factor in their struggles to make do and to get along with their peers; Klein, too, reveals much through episodes focused on each of the girls. The Mellings, whose improvident father's behavior (attributed to WW I experiences) is bizarre and whose mother is lost in writing some sadly uninspired verse, are near the bottom of the scale—of which they are painfully aware. But though most of their attempts to be included with their social betters are doomed to failure, they are vital and imaginative, irrepressibly occupied with outrageous pranks, repartee, and rivalries— especially among themselves. Grace, Heather, Cathy, and Vivienne are distinctive and memorable; and, while their down-under vocabulary may give some readers pause, it's an integral part of the strongly evoked setting and often self-explanatory. The girls' rowdy in-fighting is fierce—exaggerated for humor but authentic; it also provides a foil for some touching final scenes that reveal their underlying loyalty and affection. And though much of the narrative is farcical and the episodic structure leaves some loose ends, it all adds up to a gritty, intriguing glimpse of a particular time and place. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: March 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-670-83909-4
Page Count: 162
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1992
Drawing on her experience with a relief organization on the Thai border, Ho tells the story of a Cambodian family, fleeing the rival factions of the 80's while hoping to gather resources to return to farming in their homeland. Narrator Dara, 12, and the remnants of her family have arrived at a refugee camp soon after her father's summary execution. At first, the camp is a haven: food is plentiful, seed rice is available, and they form a bond with another family- -brother Sarun falls in love with Nea, and Dara makes friends with Nea's cousin, Jantu, who contrives marvelous toys from mud and bits of scrap; made wise by adversity, Jantu understands that the process of creation outweighs the value of things, and that dead loved ones may live on in memory. The respite is brief: Vietnamese bombing disrupts the camp, and the family is temporarily but terrifyingly separated. Later, Jantu is wounded by friendly fire and doesn't survive; but her tragic death empowers Dara to confront Sarun, who's caught up in mindless militarism instigated by a charismatic leader, and persuade him to travel home with the others—to plant rice and build a family instead of waging war. Again, Ho (Rice Without Rain, 1990) skillfully shapes her story to dramatize political and humanitarian issues. The easily swayed Sarun lacks dimension, but the girls are more subtly drawn—Dara's growing courage and assertiveness are especially convincing and admirable. Touching, authentic, carefully wrought- -and with an unusually appealing jacket. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-374-31340-7
Page Count: 163
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1991
After witnessing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, Daniel is suddenly transported, at age 14, from his comfortable life in Frankfurt to a Polish ghetto, then to Auschwitz and Buchenwald—losing most of his family along the way, seeing Nazi brutality of both the casual and the calculated kind, and recording atrocities with a smuggled camera (``What has happened to me?...Who am I? Where am I going?''). Matas, explicating an exhibit of photos and other materials at the new United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, creates a convincing composite youth and experience—fictional but carefully based on survivors' accounts. It's a savage story with no attempt to soften the culpability of the German people; Daniel's profound anger is easier to understand than is his father's compassion or his sister's plea to ``chose love. Always choose love.'' Daniel survives to be reunited, after the war, with his wife-to-be, but his dying friend's last word echoes beyond the happy ending: ``Remember...'' An unusual undertaking, effectively carried out. Chronology; glossary. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-590-46920-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
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