A headlong thriller laced with provocative and topical historical truths.
Now working for British intelligence after leaving Berlin in the Kindertransport, 12-year-old Max Bretzfeld returns to Nazi Germany on a secret mission.
During his ostensible mission—infiltrating the Funkhaus, the hub of Nazi radio and propaganda—Max not only faces continual danger, but also struggles with his conscience and even (briefly) his loyalty as he confronts some uncomfortably close parallels between the rabid racism of the Third Reich and that of both the British Empire and the United States throughout their histories. Max is also harboring a secret: Despite being expressly forbidden to do so by his adopted British uncle, he searches for his parents, only to discover strangers living in his family’s apartment. What follows is an absorbing whirl of narrow squeaks and tense, clever exploits, lightened by moments of comfort and comical commentary by Stein and Berg, the dybbuk and kobold spirits perched on Max’s shoulders. Gidwitz, who conducted careful research, realistically portrays a large walk-on cast of real Nazis, from Joseph Goebbels to Hitler himself, who explain how they rose to power and how nations can be led by the right narratives: “With these grand stories, we can bind our people together.” The cast of fictional ordinary Germans shows how seductive the Nazi promise to “make Germany great again” seemed. This sequel trusts readers with critically relevant insights on necessary vigilance and the human capacity for monstrous behavior.
A headlong thriller laced with provocative and topical historical truths. (historical notes, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593112113
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
During a school year in which a gifted teacher who emphasizes personal responsibility among his fifth graders ends up in a coma from a thrown snowball, his students come to terms with their own issues and learn to be forgiving. Told in short chapters organized month-by-month in the voices of seven students, often describing the same incident from different viewpoints, this weaves together a variety of not-uncommon classroom characters and situations: the new kid, the trickster, the social bully, the super-bright and the disaffected; family clashes, divorce and death; an unwed mother whose long-ago actions haven't been forgotten in the small-town setting; class and experiential differences. Mr. Terupt engineers regular visits to the school’s special-needs classroom, changing some lives on both sides. A "Dollar Word" activity so appeals to Luke that he sprinkles them throughout his narrative all year. Danielle includes her regular prayers, and Anna never stops her hopeful matchmaking. No one is perfect in this feel-good story, but everyone benefits, including sentimentally inclined readers. (Fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73882-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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