An engaging and educational supernatural tale.
A novel offers a ghost story inspired by World War II naval history.
Teenager Cam Lund is named for his deceased grandfather Cameron, who served on the USS Mississinewa in the 1940s. One fateful night in 1944, a Japanese “suicide sub” deliberately crashed into the naval ship, resulting in a fire and the vessel’s sinking. In an effort to learn more about his heroic grandfather’s history, Cam and his father trek to Ulithi Atoll—the ship’s final resting place—to dive to the wreck.While underwater, Cam spots a shiny object “calling” him and dives beneath the vessel to retrieve it. He later learns that it is a dog tag that belonged to Mike Bowers, a crew member who did not survive the attack. This realization coincides with a dose of spookiness when Cam wakes one morning to find salty seaweed on the floor. Strange occurrences follow him home, where he sees a ghost and smells oil in his bedroom. Cam links the spirit to the dog tag, and quickly begins researching Mike and the ship, leading to connections he never imagined. With two books in one (the second half is a brief, nonfiction overview of the events that inspired the story as well as information on the actual sailors and photographs of the ship), Fulleman presents an authentic tale about an episode that is perhaps not widely known. The story seems intended for younger readers, which explains the more rudimentary prose as well as the glossary. But the writing is sometimes repetitive, which hampers the tale’s flow: “The colors on the fish were bright, happy colors. It looked like a living wall of color…Then, the distinct gray color of the ship stood out…The color of the fish stood in stark contrast to the gray ship.” Though the prose is sometimes a bit too simplistic, the author succeeds in achieving the delicate balance of faithfully detailing a tragedy while making the story enjoyable and heartwarming. Fulleman clearly has a great deal of respect for his father (who was on the real ship during the attack) and the men who sailed with him. His work will enlighten readers about a historical event while honoring the sailors lost in the assault.
An engaging and educational supernatural tale.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-939986-23-8
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Putnam & Smith Publishing Company
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A touching novel about loss with a magical and mystical flourish.
A young man helps the living and dead meet one last time under the full moon.
Japanese bestseller Tsujimura’s quiet novel follows a mysterious teenager known as the go-between, who can set up meetings between the living and the dead. An introverted woman wants to meet the television star with whom she has a parasocial relationship. A cynical eldest son hopes to visit his mother about their family business. A devastated high schooler fears she is responsible for her friend’s tragic death. And, finally, a middle-aged workaholic finally feels ready to find out if his fiancée, who disappeared seven years ago, is dead. Each character has a uniquely personal reason for seeking out the deceased, including closure and forgiveness, as well as selfishness and fear. Imbued with magic and the perfect amount of gravitas, there are many rules around these meetings: Only the living can make requests and they can only have one meeting per lifetime. Additionally, the dead can deny a meeting—and, most importantly, once the dead person has met with a living person, they will be gone forever. With secrets shared, confessions made, and regrets cemented, these meetings lead to joy and sorrow in equal measure. In the final chapter, all of these visits—and their importance in the go-between’s life—begin to gracefully converge. As we learn the go-between’s identity, we watch him struggle with the magnitude and gravity of his work. At one point, he asks: “When a life was lost, who did it belong to? What were those left behind meant to do with the incomprehensible, inescapable loss?” Though the story can be repetitive, Tsujimura raises poignant and powerful questions about what the living owe not only the dead, but each other; and how we make peace with others and ourselves in the wake of overwhelming grief.
A touching novel about loss with a magical and mystical flourish.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781668099834
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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