Su Phan, the daughter of a prosperous rural village merchant in North Vietnam, sees her wonderful life ruined by the Communists and the war. When her father's trading boats are confiscated, he sets up a store, but the Communists destroy it and Su Phan's home, and imprison her father for years for re- education. When the village is bombed, her mother moves the remaining family into the jungle, where they build a hut and eke out a meager existence. With Pevsner (Would My Fortune Cookie Lie?, 1996, etc.), Su Phan, now called Fay Tang, tells the true story of her lost childhood and opens up an unfamiliar world, that of the North Vietnamese peasants in the years before and during the war. For US readers, it will be a compelling portrait of the life of a child for whom terrible hardship was an accepted part of reality, and it will linger in their minds. (Memoir. 8- 10)
Pub Date: Oct. 20, 1997
ISBN: 0-395-82267-X
Page Count: 107
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dedicated to Samuel Clemens, who “promised never to let dull facts get in the way of telling a true story,” this rousing mix of fact and fancy fleshes out the lives and adventures of several half-legendary harbingers of the Westward Expansion. Glass (Bewildered for Three Days, 2000, etc.) pairs dappled scenes of buckskin-clad roughnecks battling bear, bad weather, and bands of eagle-feather-wearing Indians with narrative accounts of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the growth and decline of the fur trade, and selected individual exploits of the likes of John Colter, Jim Bridger, Mike Fink, and Jim Beckwourth. Admitting that he “adjusted a few particulars” in his retellings, the author downplays but doesn’t ignore the, as he phrases it, “less than tender sensibilities” of these men toward animals, native peoples, and each other, giving young readers a rare chance to cross back and forth over the boundary between historical fact and—that other kind. (maps, bibliography, author’s note) (Nonfiction/folklore. 8-10)
Pub Date: June 12, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32555-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2001
A humorous, though lightweight, plot tells of Jimmy Dabble, an extraordinary child, who faces the predictable perils of dull, unimaginative, and hardworking farm parents. Saved from their drab perspective by his own innate abilities and his beloved talking farm animals, he seizes ways to enliven everyone’s life and incidentally increase the farm’s productivity. Besides his animal friends, he is desperately alone, until the arrival of his quirky grandmother, who opens up new vistas of how to disobey his parents. Magic intrudes with a fanciful creature from the forbidden forest, but through the steady, dimensionless plot vehicles, all the characters remain undeveloped. Vischer delivers lively conversation that starts to develop insight and a well-paced story but is curtailed by the rest of the text that lacks spark, development, and expertise. The depth that he tries to invest in his characters is flawed. Even the parents’ latent ability to value anything other than work is cheapened by the politically incorrect nature of how that is foreshadowed: father’s craving for tobacco to fill his empty pipe which perpetually hangs from his mouth, and mother’s gentle appreciation for her figurine collection, which she is willing to sacrifice for the good of the farm. A nominee for the 1998 Reuben Award and an animator for Disney and DreamWorks, Vischer’s art smacks of second-rate cartoons. Despite occasionally sparkling and revealing conversation, overall this lacks smooth-flowing text and developed characterization, making it an unnecessary purchase. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46671-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2001
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
