by Uri Orlev & translated by Hillel Halkin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1993
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
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by Uri Orlev & translated by Hillel Halkin
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by Uri Orlev & translated by Hillel Halkin
by Richard Peck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2000
Year-round fun.
Set in 1937 during the so-called “Roosevelt recession,” tight times compel Mary Alice, a Chicago girl, to move in with her grandmother, who lives in a tiny Illinois town so behind the times that it doesn’t “even have a picture show.”
This winning sequel takes place several years after A Long Way From Chicago (1998) leaves off, once again introducing the reader to Mary Alice, now 15, and her Grandma Dowdel, an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who despite her hard-as-nails exterior is able to see her granddaughter with “eyes in the back of her heart.” Peck’s slice-of-life novel doesn’t have much in the way of a sustained plot; it could almost be a series of short stories strung together, but the narrative never flags, and the book, populated with distinctive, soulful characters who run the gamut from crazy to conventional, holds the reader’s interest throughout. And the vignettes, some involving a persnickety Grandma acting nasty while accomplishing a kindness, others in which she deflates an overblown ego or deals with a petty rivalry, are original and wildly funny. The arena may be a small hick town, but the battle for domination over that tiny turf is fierce, and Grandma Dowdel is a canny player for whom losing isn’t an option. The first-person narration is infused with rich, colorful language—“She was skinnier than a toothpick with termites”—and Mary Alice’s shrewd, prickly observations: “Anybody who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.”
Year-round fun. (Fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 978-0-8037-2518-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
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by Richard Peck ; illustrated by Kelly Murphy
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by Rick Riordan ; illustrated by John Rocco ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 19, 2014
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
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by Rick Riordan & Mark Oshiro
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by Rick Riordan ; adapted by Ethan Young ; illustrated by Ethan Young ; color by George C. Williams
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