The author of The Man from the Other Side (1991, Batchelder Award) tells the story of another real-life Middle European who survived WW II. Born in Bucharest in 1933, ``Lydia'' is a willful terror. She forces her mother to fire three nannies (though she picks up German and French from the first two); makes anonymous threatening phone calls to a neighbor she imagines is her sworn enemy (``That Woman,'' who lured her father away); and when her mother arranges her escape to Palestine in 1943, she feistily barters for privileges like a window seat on the train. At a kibbutz, awaiting her mother, Lydia designates her new housemother as another enemy, but she does make other friends; and she weathers, without self-pity, sudden immersion in a society without private possessions, though she raises an outcry- -and, as usual, gets action—when the dolls that once belonged to her mother, and that have long enacted her own intense fantasies about her family, are taken from her. She looks up her father, now married to ``That Woman,'' who turns out to be nice; when her mother finally arrives, also remarried, Lydia is able to make peace with both sets of parents. Often outrageous and abrasive, yet also delightfully imaginative, bright, and tenacious, Lydia is the very archetype of a survivor, while her experiences on the periphery of the war's horrors are authentic and fascinating. An afterword notes that the real Lydia still lives on an Israeli kibbutz with her rabbi husband. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-395-65660-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A world-class charmer, Clements (The Janitor’s Boy, 2000, etc.) woos aspiring young authors—as well as grown up publishers, editors, agents, parents, teachers, and even reviewers—with this tongue-in-cheek tale of a 12-year-old novelist’s triumphant debut. Sparked by a chance comment of her mother’s, a harried assistant editor for a (surely fictional) children’s imprint, Natalie draws on deep reserves of feeling and writing talent to create a moving story about a troubled schoolgirl and her father. First, it moves her pushy friend Zoe, who decides that it has to be published; then it moves a timorous, second-year English teacher into helping Zoe set up a virtual literary agency; then, submitted pseudonymously, it moves Natalie’s unsuspecting mother into peddling it to her waspish editor-in-chief. Depicting the world of children’s publishing as a delicious mix of idealism and office politics, Clements squires the manuscript past slush pile and contract, the editing process, and initial buzz (“The Cheater grabs hold of your heart and never lets go,” gushes Kirkus). Finally, in a tearful, joyous scene—carefully staged by Zoe, who turns out to be perfect agent material: cunning, loyal, devious, manipulative, utterly shameless—at the publication party, Natalie’s identity is revealed as news cameras roll. Selznick’s gnomic, realistic portraits at once reflect the tale’s droll undertone and deftly capture each character’s distinct personality. Terrific for flourishing school writing projects, this is practical as well as poignant. Indeed, it “grabs hold of yourheart and never lets go.” (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82594-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
The inevitable go-to for Percy’s legions of fans who want the stories behind his stories.
Percy Jackson takes a break from adventuring to serve up the Greek gods like flapjacks at a church breakfast.
Percy is on form as he debriefs readers concerning Chaos, Gaea, Ouranos and Pontus, Dionysus, Ariadne and Persephone, all in his dude’s patter: “He’d forgotten how beautiful Gaea could be when she wasn’t all yelling up in his face.” Here they are, all 12 Olympians, plus many various offspring and associates: the gold standard of dysfunctional families, whom Percy plays like a lute, sometimes lyrically, sometimes with a more sardonic air. Percy’s gift, which is no great secret, is to breathe new life into the gods. Closest attention is paid to the Olympians, but Riordan has a sure touch when it comes to fitting much into a small space—as does Rocco’s artwork, which smokes and writhes on the page as if hit by lightning—so readers will also meet Makaria, “goddess of blessed peaceful deaths,” and the Theban Teiresias, who accidentally sees Athena bathing. She blinds him but also gives him the ability to understand the language of birds. The atmosphere crackles and then dissolves, again and again: “He could even send the Furies after living people if they committed a truly horrific crime—like killing a family member, desecrating a temple, or singing Journey songs on karaoke night.”
The inevitable go-to for Percy’s legions of fans who want the stories behind his stories. (Mythology. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-8364-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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