War is raging in Sofarende, and it will have profound and devastating effects on 12-year-old Mathilde. No one is safe.
When children are tested to determine their suitability for war-related service, Mathilde is selected and sent to Faetre, a secret location where no communication with family or friends is allowed. Children there solve intricate problems with results immediately applied to the war effort. Mathilde's skills are different; her sole assignment is to develop a connection with Rainer, a young Tyssian POW—blond, blue-eyed, and white, just like her. Her empathy and kindness lead to a sharing of their mutual sadness, loneliness, and fear, through paintings of horror and beautiful peace, when words no longer suffice. When Faetre is abandoned, a compassionate decision puts her in even greater danger, but readers will be relieved to know that a sequel is planned. LaFleur creates an alternate, Europe-like landscape with an aggressor nation waging war on its neighbors. Names and descriptions contain just enough hints of a different language base to maintain the illusion of otherness. Mathilde is timid and strong, childlike and complex, vividly narrating her story in great detail, encompassing myriad characters and events, all without censoring her fears and confusion about the nature of war and a world turned upside down, while somehow still managing to believe something better is possible.
Deeply emotional, compelling, and brilliant. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-385-74300-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
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In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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PROFILES
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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