A duology opener with a truly likable hero and clever puzzling.
A determined refugee will do whatever it takes to get back to his parents—even becoming a British spy in Nazi Germany.
When 11-year-old Max Bretzfeld, a Jewish boy from Berlin, is sent to England on the Kindertransport in 1939, he’s accompanied by two tiny men on his shoulders whom only he can see. The German kobold and Jewish dybbuk rarely interact with Max, but they comically comment on his circumstances. And such circumstances! After a working-class upbringing, he’s fostered in England by Jewish baron Lord Montagu. Most of the white non-Jewish people Max encounters are shudderingly classist, racist, and antisemitic, but after a childhood in Nazi Germany, this is hardly new. Nonetheless, he’ll do anything to get back to his parents, and thus, Max sets out to become a spy. While it may be hard to convince British intelligence to send him back to Germany, Max will do whatever it takes. Despite the compelling premise and likable characters, readers will have to wait for the sequel for a payoff. After a strong start, the kobold and dybbuk are relegated to the roles of Greek chorus, and the story’s fascination with the real-life people who inspired the secondary characters is such that various questions concerning them are intriguing but remain unresolved in this volume. Nonetheless, this book—packed with sideways thinking, sociopolitical insights, and a Marmite-eating kangaroo named Kathy—delights.
A duology opener with a truly likable hero and clever puzzling. (historical note, annotated bibliography) (Historical fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593112083
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
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