An abandoned suitcase pushes a Wisconsin farm girl with a yen for travel out of the nest in this bland post_Civil War story from LaFaye (The Year of the Sawdust Man, p. 740). While waiting in a Michigan train station for relatives who never show, Katherine, 16, finds a suitcase belonging to one Edith Shay of Richmond, Virginia, and impulsively buys a one-way ticket to Chicago, intending to see some of the world while returning the bag to its owner. The world she encounters is mostly benign. She has little trouble finding work, lodging, or role models, is never in personal danger, and experiences or witnesses little suffering beyond a robbery (while she sleeps), hard work, and family squabbles. In fact, during her winter-long journey from Chicago to Richmond, with stops in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., she spends far more time battling homesickness and fretting about her deception (she travels as "Edith") than describing sights or stretching her wings. While readers will relish Katherine's/Edith's colorful way with a phrase, they will have trouble reconciling her independence of spirit with her meek responses to the verbal abuse of her employers, and the ending is weak_the real Edith is dead, with no kin. Katherine walks away, thinking about taking up a career as a travel writer. With so many other fledglings, from Katherine Paterson's Lyddie (1991) to the young artist in Joann Mazzio's Leaving Eldorado (1993), facing first flights over far harsher terrain, this junket seems too easy. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-87598-8
Page Count: 198
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
From England’s Children’s Laureate, a searing WWI-era tale of a close extended family repeatedly struck by adversity and injustice. On vigil in the trenches, 17-year-old Thomas Peaceful looks back at a childhood marked by guilt over his father’s death, anger at the shabby treatment his strong-minded mother receives from the local squire and others—and deep devotion to her, to his brain-damaged brother Big Joe, and especially to his other older brother Charlie, whom he has followed into the army by lying about his age. Weaving telling incidents together, Morpurgo surrounds the Peacefuls with mean-spirited people at home, and devastating wartime experiences on the front, ultimately setting readers up for a final travesty following Charlie’s refusal of an order to abandon his badly wounded brother. Themes and small-town class issues here may find some resonance on this side of the pond, but the particular cultural and historical context will distance the story from American readers—particularly as the pace is deliberate, and the author’s hints about where it’s all heading are too rare and subtle to create much suspense. (Fiction. 11-13, adult)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63648-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2004
The best day of Michael Mackenzie's life becomes the worst when the bullet he exuberantly fires into the air during his 17th birthday party comes down a mile away and kills a man. When he hears the story on the radio, the news hits him like a lightning bolt. Numbly following the advice of his best friend, Joe, he buries the rifle and tries, without much success, to get on with life. So does the victim's 15-year-old daughter, Jenna, who had been present when the bullet struck. Switching between Michael's point-of-view and Jenna's, McDonald (Comfort Creek, 1996) sends the two teenagers dancing slowly toward each other, using mutual acquaintances, chance meetings at parties and the community pool, and glimpses at a distance. Both go through parallel phases of denial, both are tortured by remorse, exhibit behavior changes, and experience strange dreams; both eventually find ways to ease their grief and guilt. When the police close in, Joe takes the blame, giving Michael the nerve to confess. In the final chapter, McDonald shifts to present tense and brings Michael and Jenna to a cathartic meeting under a huge sycamore said in local Lenape legend to be a place of healing—an elaborate and, considering the suburban setting and familiar contemporary characters, awkward graft in this deliberately paced but deeply felt drama. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-32309-3
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997
© 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.
