An absorbing story about a strong girl living during tumultuous times.
The year is 1857, Indians are rising up against the colonial British East India Company, and Meera is about to leave her childhood home.
As per tradition, Meera and Krishna were married when she was just 4. When she turns 13 in a few days, Meera will be considered ready to be a wife. But on the day she’s supposed to move in with her husband’s family, disaster strikes: Krishna is killed. According to their families’ customs, Meera must commit sati, burning herself to death on Krishna’s funeral pyre. Luckily, her aunt helps her escape, and Meera flees to the city of Indranagar, where she ends up working in the kitchen of a high-ranking British family. Meera’s plan is to keep her head down and save enough to make a fresh start, but things change when her new friend Bhavani invites her to join a group of underground revolutionaries working toward India’s freedom. Meera must decide whether to fight for her country, her future, or both. The final third of this historical novel is laced with twists, turns, and reveals that are both surprising and riveting. Meera’s transformation from scared child to bold revolutionary is especially gratifying. Informed readers may notice clues to some characters’ castes, but the subject of caste is not directly addressed even though the British at this time were using the caste system to turn Indians against each other.
An absorbing story about a strong girl living during tumultuous times. (map, author’s note, historical note, timeline, glossary) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64379-040-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2021
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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