An overly didactic tone and patronizing passages hinder this humans-vs.-nature story.
This fictional tale follows a pack of endangered gray wolves fighting for survival as a journalist fights for their protection.
Still reeling from his wife’s tragic death, Chicago-based journalist Jeffrey Reese has temporarily relocated to Montana to report on a subject close to his heart: endangered gray wolves. According to the furious farmers and ranchers in the area, the wolves are dangerous, killing livestock and threatening livelihoods. But Reese knows the intelligent, loyal wolves have more to fear from humans. Reese soon finds his torn heartstrings mending thanks to the beautiful Elizabeth English, who loves the animals despite her rancher father’s aggressive anti-wolf stance. As Reese studies the wolves, even briefly tending to an injured one, the story shifts between his experiences and the saga of a nearby wolf pack: brave leader, Bartok; his devoted brother Lakota; alpha female, Dyami; her precocious son, Yuma; and others. In his debut work, which at times is noticeably similar to Nicholas Evans’ The Loop (1998), Cera’s respect and empathy for his lupine subjects shines through on every page, and his descriptions of nature sparkle. However, the author dictates too clearly who the heroes and villains are, rendering the story more preachy than passionate. The wolf characters are repeatedly described as noble, fascinating creatures, while the humans are either gallant and bland—particularly Reese and Elizabeth, whose conversations and even thoughts revolve primarily around wolves—or monstrously cartoonish men who “thrived on the defenseless, fattening on the flesh of the helpless.” The book also displays an uncomfortably patronizing attitude toward Native Americans with the character of Jacy Cayuse, a 16-year-old Nez Perce boy who borders on being a cultural caricature: “[Reese] knew what every Native American would feel if he could behold what Jacy was seeing. The wolf and the Indian shared similar fates in their histories, Reese thought—both shamefully held in low esteem.” Devout naturalists with a passion for wolves may embrace the book’s larger message, but many readers might find the heavy-handed tone and static characters tedious.
An overly didactic tone and patronizing passages hinder this humans-vs.-nature story.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-0984825004
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Libra Books, Incorporated
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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