Prejudice leads to tragedy in Heisel's (Eyes of a Stranger, 1996) preachy, but perceptive, cross-cultural tale about a friendship between two girls, one a white Christian, the other a non-Christian Chinese in a rough and tumble mining community. The gold rush is just about over and although Angelena's part-time miner Pa still works his 'diggin's,' the pickings are no longer ample. A Chinese settlement has sprung up on the edge of town, and, as times tighten, miners begin to complain that while gold and jobs are scarce, there's a big surplus of 'he dang Chinee.' The discussion would have remained theoretical to fourteen-year-old Angelena if An Li, a Chinese girl about her own age, didn't begin coming to her one room schoolhouse. Against the sentiment of the other kids, Angelena befriends An Li and gets to know members of her community. Things heat up when a group of disgruntled miners, including Angelena's angry, frustrated Uncle Jasper, begin acting on their dissatisfaction. Learning that the miners are going to drive the Chinese out of town by burning down their homes, Angelena acts, bravely going to the 'China Shacks' to protect her friends. Life lessons abound including one from her brother Tom about the complicity of silence. 'I always thought I could hang around Jasper's shenanigans without being a part of the worst of them. But I was wrong.' Although somewhat formulaic and slow in spots, Heisel's colorfully written story, textured with exuberant, punchy dialogue, will give face to a little known aspect of the gold rush. (author’s note) (Historical Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: April 15, 2000
ISBN: 0-8234-1432-9
Page Count: 185
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The worldbuilding of countless eco-thrillers serves here as the setting for a classic Western. A Western, that is, with plankton instead of cows, harpoons instead of six-shooters and submarines instead of covered wagons. Ty lives below the ocean, in a future in which water levels have risen and Topsiders live cramped together in unbearable conditions. Undersea, any brave settler can stake a claim and build a huge homestead. Ty was born down here, and he loves it. When he encounters freckle-faced Topsider orphan Gemma, he revels in showing her his world, from inflatable houses shaped like jellyfish to beautiful schools of swordfish. If only they weren’t in danger from the villainous Seablite gang that keeps attacking homesteads! This caper features a slew of Western standards—the crabby old doctor (“Doc”), the saloon filled with bandanna-clad thugs, the posse of furious citizens—and a few plot twists keep the tension high. A thrilling conversion of the classics to one of our newer frontiers. (Science fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-17814-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
A child’s feelings of loneliness and isolation are eventually replaced with a longing for adventure in a mysterious book from Nascimbene (A Day in September, 1995, not reviewed). Sent to a boarding school in the Swiss Alps for the summer while her parents are vacationing, L£cia, homesick for S—o Paulo and family, remains detached from all activities until the day she hears distant hammering emanating from a local barn. Intrigued, L£cia discovers a kind farmer named Aldo behind the sound; he is keeping a secret from the outside world. Befriending the girl after she pours out her heart to him, Aldo decides to show her the large sailboat he has been building. L£cia, who renames all the wildflowers she finds according to her wishes, finds a wildflower she calls Ocean Deep and sends it to her parents, foreshadowing the dream she is to have later aboard Aldo’s boat; in this dream she sails close enough to her shipbound parents to wave at them. The beautifully conceived illustrations have a range of appearances, from the look of cut-paper silhouettes whose spaces have been washed in watercolor, to landscapes and seascapes with perspectives and of a simplicity of line associated with Japanese art. The typeface, though attractive, is a small size that makes this better for read-aloud sessions than reading alone; the story, long for a picture book, but deeply felt, is ripe for the interpretation of children. (Picture book. 7-11)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56846-161-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
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