Three illustrated vignettes evince the deep bond between a man and his best friend in the midst of wartime.
Man’s best friend didn’t rest while he fought across the lines of battle during wartime. Focusing on three major wars—World War I, World War II and Vietnam—Keenan uses the graphic medium to show how dogs aided soldiers both physically and mentally. The opening piece, “Boots,” portrays a border collie in the trenches of Ypres in 1914 who is able to help sniff out wounded soldiers. When Boots and her young British handler find themselves facing the enemy on December 25, they take part in the famed Christmas truce. In “Loki,” the most thrilling offering, a strong-willed sled dog helps an American soldier serving in Greenland during World War II navigate perilous weather and impending enemy advancement. In the moving “Sheba,” an African-American soldier develops a strong bond with his scout dog during the Vietnam War—only to have her treated like a piece of equipment and wrenched from his life. The bonds between these men and their dogs are palpable; the visual component of this work adds a layer of pathos that shows just how strong the connection between man and dog can be. Keenan adroitly captures this work with her parting words, “Semper Fido!”; a truer tenet was never spoken.
A must for dog lovers and fans of military history and historical fiction. (author’s note, further reading) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-12887-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
Categories: GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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The closing of her favorite swimming pool opens 11-year-old Gloriana Hemphill’s eyes to the ugliness of racism in a small Mississippi town in 1964.
Glory can’t believe it… the Hanging Moss Community Pool is closing right before her July Fourth birthday. Not only that, she finds out the closure’s not for the claimed repairs needed, but so Negroes can’t swim there. Tensions have been building since “Freedom Workers” from the North started shaking up status quo, and Glory finds herself embroiled in it when her new, white friend from Ohio boldly drinks from the “Colored Only” fountain. The Hemphills’ African-American maid, Emma, a mother figure to Glory and her sister Jesslyn, tells her, “Don’t be worrying about what you can’t fix, Glory honey.” But Glory does, becoming an activist herself when she writes an indignant letter to the newspaper likening “hateful prejudice” to “dog doo” that makes her preacher papa proud. When she’s not saving the world, reading Nancy Drew or eating Dreamsicles, Glory shares the heartache of being the kid sister of a preoccupied teenager, friendship gone awry and the terrible cost of blabbing people’s secrets… mostly in a humorously sassy first-person voice.
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl who takes a stand. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-33180-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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