A budding filmmaker finds opportunity and mystery on a camping trip with his family.
Spencer is on a camping trip with his developmentally delayed younger brother, Bunny, and their mildly mysterious grandfather David. Spencer gets caught up with War of 1812 re-enactors who are being filmed by a group of college students. Since he has a growing interest in moviemaking, the whole process is very appealing for Spencer. The college students take him on as an assistant, a duty Spencer must balance against trying to figure out where his wily brother has disappeared to. Although hints to that mystery abound, ultimately they come to nothing at all; either Bunny isn’t missing, or it doesn’t matter that he is. (Bunny tells his own version of this camping trip in companion novel Weerdest Day Ever!, by Richard Scrimger.) A secondary issue is that one re-enactor seems to be hatching a scheme that perhaps reveals yet another mystery about David. Spencer’s voice is authentic and amusing, but the mystery is never especially compelling. While Staunton spun perfectly fine mysteries starring an older Spencer in Jump Cut (2012) and Coda (2014), he seems particularly hamstrung by the necessity of writing for a younger audience, with the result that the plot fizzles.
An average mystery for an uncertain audience. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1161-4
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
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A young tennis champion becomes the target of revenge.
In this sequel to Legacy and the Queen (2019), Legacy Petrin and her friends Javi and Pippa have returned to Legacy’s home province and the orphanage run by her father. With her friends’ help, she is in training to defend her championship when they discover that another player, operating under the protection of High Consul Silla, is presenting herself as Legacy. She is so convincing that the real Legacy is accused of being an imitation. False Legacy has become a hero to the masses, further strengthening Silla’s hold, and it becomes imperative to uncover and defeat her. If Legacy is to win again, she must play her imposter while disguised as someone else. Winning at tennis is not just about money and fame, but resisting Silla’s plans to send more young people into brutal mines with little hope of better lives. Legacy will have to overcome her fears and find the magic that allowed her to claim victory in the past. This story, with its elements of sports, fantasy, and social consciousness that highlight tensions between the powerful and those they prey upon, successfully continues the series conceived by late basketball superstar Bryant. As before, the tennis matches are depicted with pace and spirit. Legacy and Javi have brown skin; most other characters default to White.
A worthy combination of athletic action, the virtues of inner strength, and the importance of friendship. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949520-19-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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