Hamilton's clean, spare style delights and surprises with its unexpected melodies and insights.
Winner of an impressive number of prizes, including a Newbery and two Coretta Scott King awards, Hamilton is at home in biography, folklore, and fantasy; here, in a sequel to The House of Dies Drear (1968), she returns to realistic fiction with roots in the past of both family and place.
Thomas Small and his family inhabit the old Drear house, keeping secret the tunnel, fabulous treasure, and Underground Railway hideaway discovered in the earlier book. Old Plato still lives nearby in a cave that conceals an entrance to the tunnel; and Thomas still thinks of the neighboring Darrow men as enemies, though Pesty Darrow is a friend and Macky might become one. The Darrows have been seeking the rumored treasure for generations. Unexpectedly, Mrs. Darrow, an awe-inspiring recluse whose mind is trapped burrowing in the past as others might be caught burrowing in Drear's perilous historic tunnels, makes her way through a tunnel that the Smalls were unaware of, into their dwelling. Now everyone has secrets to defend; and in order to save the historic treasure from looting and its searchers and defenders from the tunnels' dangers, Mr. Small (a history professor) goes public with the find, effectively both preserving it and realigning his family and the Darrows in a tentative friendship. On one level, this is an accessible tale of an exciting discovery, lively with conversation and action. But Hamilton's stories are always complex, multileveled. The muted contrast among three families of diverse ages, education and status, while emphasizing their common humanity; the historical undercurrent surfacing in Mrs. Darrow's tragic story of an Indian girl who lost her life while failing to save a group of orphans from slavers; and the intricacies of ownership and use of whatever treasures there may be, and their effect on owners or users, are among the themes to ponder here.
Hamilton's clean, spare style delights and surprises with its unexpected melodies and insights. (Mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: March 16, 1987
ISBN: 0590956272
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1987
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A true-to-life portrait of a young girl’s cheerful selfishness in this surprisingly optimistic novel of unrelenting poverty
Homeless orphan Valli is always friendly, if amoral.
When Valli can, she sneaks glimpses at Bollywood dances, learns a little reading or throws rocks at the monsters—people without faces or fingers—who live on the other side of the tracks. Most of the time, however, she picks up coal. Sick of beatings, hunger and coal, Valli hides on a passing truck, fleeing her life of poverty for a life of… well, more poverty, but also more excitement. On the Kolkata streets she lives day-to-day. Constantly starving, she contentedly begs and steals; when she has something she doesn't need (a bit of extra soap, a blanket), she passes it on to somebody else. When Valli tries her luck begging from kind Dr. Indra, she learns she has leprosy, just like the faceless monsters back home. It takes some time, but Valli learns to accept help from the women who offer it to her: Dr. Indra, who works at the leprosy hospital; Neeta, a sales manager with leprosy who teaches Valli how to make pie charts; Laxmi, a teenager who's been burned. An emphasis on Christmas falls discordant, but Valli’s journey from stubborn solitude to member of a community is richly fulfilling.
A true-to-life portrait of a young girl’s cheerful selfishness in this surprisingly optimistic novel of unrelenting poverty . (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55498-134-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
Readers who would like to go on a spirit quest should choose instead Sylvia Ross’ more carefully crafted and respectful Blue...
On the day her little brother Peter is hospitalized with a life-threatening illness, 11-year-old Feather is taken on a spirit quest through Manhattan in a series of improbable events in which her Lakota grandfather passes on some of his powers as a traditional healer.
Feather describes the day she saved her 5-year-old brother's life in a chronological narrative she writes up after the fact. This frame reassures readers but removes most of the suspense. Her focus is not plot but the particulars of her spiritual training. This cultural appropriation of another’s religious traditions is surprisingly insensitive. Although the Texan author has dedicated his book to generic “First Americans,” his only stated personal connection is “lifelong interest and respect.” No sources are provided for the mishmash of Native American cultural and ceremonial details. Wooden dialogue and stereotyped characters add to reader discomfort. Also involved in Feather’s training are a magical taxi driver, an Arapaho with whom her grandfather can “talk the old talk,” although those peoples had different languages; a Kodiak bear in the Central Park Zoo; Mrs. Chen, the ageless owner of an international curio shop in Greenwich Village; and the Andersons’ Jewish landlady, a Holocaust survivor, who brings chicken soup to the boy.
Readers who would like to go on a spirit quest should choose instead Sylvia Ross’ more carefully crafted and respectful Blue Jay Girl (2010). (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-934133-49-1
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
