This brief novel is appropriate for children (as long as they are as precocious as Katie) as well as young adults and older...
The story of a precocious 6-year-old, Katie, whose Christmas wish list is not for toys and gifts for herself, but rather for good things to happen to people she cares about.
She also wishes for a newer, fresher Nativity scene to replace the cracking, peeling plastic figures outside the town library since, as she explains to the adults who question her, the Nativity scene is very important. As the story unfolds, the sad librarian who once dated and loved Katie’s older brother, only to be rejected by him when he decided he must marry within his Amish faith, finally finds true love and is able to forgive the man who broke her heart. After a bit of a scare, the wife of another of Katie’s older brothers delivers a healthy, happy baby that the couple decides to name in honor of Katie. The dilapidated Nativity figures begin to disappear somewhat mysteriously, but in the end, the whole town comes together in a live reenactment of the important Nativity scene just as Katie imagined and hoped that they would. The author was a schoolteacher before she started to write best-selling fiction, which probably explains why the character of Katie, while unusually precocious, comes across as credible. The adult characters are also believable and likable.
This brief novel is appropriate for children (as long as they are as precocious as Katie) as well as young adults and older adults intrigued by the often surprising wisdom and insight of young children.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-224254-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Avon Inspire/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
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