by Susan M. Carr illustrated by Lauren Iida ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2018
Emotional complications add a fresh note to an abuse theme that’s seen heavy use in recent decades.
In this novella set in 1950s Oregon, a girl and her cousins put on a play to catch the conscience of their abusive grandfather.
In summertime, a large family comes together for regular visits at Grandma and Grandpa Scheibert’s Oregon place, which features homemade cookies, a swimming pool, and an old two-story woolen mill full of interesting things. But to reach the mill, visitors first have to pass the rat tree. This summer, the narrator—a girl in early pubescence—is coming to some realizations, most importantly about Grandpa. His smile is “devious, disturbing”; he leers at women, including his daughters; and when the grandkids pile on for a hug, he pushes his fingers inside the narrator’s “private area.” When she begins shouting “Run from Grandpa!,” her own mother admonishes her, suggesting a deep-rooted family sickness. Nevertheless, the narrator instructs her sisters to yell “RUN FROM GRANDPA” as loud as possible if he should ever touch them inappropriately. With her sympathetic cousin Carl, the narrator explores their grandfather’s trunks in the mill’s attic, uncovering in old letters references to the Fatherland and a mother who was cruel to him. Carl and the narrator vow to protect their younger cousins, making them pledge to run if Grandpa tries anything. With her cousins, the narrator puts on a play based on Grandpa’s papers that’s designed to expose his childhood hurts—with explosive and distressing results beyond what she’d reckoned. The doubly painful topics of Nazism and incestuous child abuse could become sensationalistic, but Carr (The Ballad of Desiree, 2016, etc.) avoids this through her narrator’s point of view, limited because of age and inexperience. The girl just wants to put a stop to Grandpa’s abuse through whatever practical means are available, but darker undercurrents flow through the story, particularly in the image of the rat. The narrator sees her methods as innocent, but the tale’s ending suggests it’s not that simple. In telling secrets, she too could be considered a rat, and she feels “sick and sorry.” The mixed-media illustrations by Iida (Rattan Woman, 2018, etc.) feature a cut-paper technique and have a vintage feel that goes well with the text.
Emotional complications add a fresh note to an abuse theme that’s seen heavy use in recent decades.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-985577-82-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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