A multilayered tale of loss and renewal with elements both topical and universal.
An evacuee of Ukraine’s Chernobyl disaster is forced to leave her puppy behind.
In the wake of the catastrophe, soldiers shot all abandoned pets and livestock, but a few survived, and it is from that glimmer of hope that McGowan spins a Call of the Wild–style tale (though with a different outcome). Two plotlines intertwine: Following the tearful separation from her beloved Samoyed mix, Zoya, 7-year-old Natasha grows up to become a brilliant but solitary science teacher who, over 20 years later, returns to the still devastated deadlands with a team of veterinarians to research radioactivity levels. Meanwhile, Zoya makes it in the wild, mating with a wolf and raising two offspring, Misha and Bratan, before succumbing to a fatal fight with a lynx. Misha survives to become an alpha male and then, on the brink of death at an advanced age, is rescued by a kindly security guard and passed on to Natasha to spend his last years guarding one last domestic pack. The animal portion of the story is the dominant one, and along with being full of vivid naturalistic details about food and setting, it lays out rich webs of nonanthropomorphic but recognizable family and pack dynamics, emotional attachments, and differences in character among wolves, dogs, and hybrids. The human cast presents as White. Final art not seen.
A multilayered tale of loss and renewal with elements both topical and universal. (historical note) (Animal fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-86154-319-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Rock the Boat/Oneworld
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable.
Six New Jersey 12-year-olds separated by decades race to ensure the “good guys” win World War II in this middle-grade work by the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and her brother, a children's author and journalist.
It all starts with a ham radio that Alice, Lawrence, and Artie fool around with in 1944 and Henry, Frances, and Lukas find in 2023. It’s late April, and the 1944 kids worry about loved ones in combat, while the 2023 kids study the war in school. When, impossibly, the radio allows the kids to communicate across time, it doesn’t take long before they share information that changes history. Can the two sets of kids work across a 79-year divide to prevent the U.S.A. from becoming the Nazi-controlled dystopia of Westfallen? This propulsive thriller includes well-paced cuts between times that keep the pages turning. Like most people in their small New Jersey town, Alice, Artie, and Frances are white. In 1944, Lawrence, who’s Black, endures bigotry; in the U.S.A. of 2023, Henry’s biracial (white and Black) identity and Lukas’ Jewish one are unremarkable, but in Westfallen, Henry’s a “mischling” doing “work-learning,” and Lukas is a menial laborer. Alice’s and Henry’s dual first-person narration zooms in on the adventure, but readers who pull back may find themselves deeply uneasy with the summary consideration paid to the real-life fates of European Jews and disabled people. The cliffhanger ending will have them hoping for more thoughtful treatment in sequels to come.
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781665950817
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals.
Is dolphin-assisted therapy so beneficial to patients that it’s worth keeping a wild dolphin captive?
Twelve-year-old Lily has lived with her emotionally distant oncologist stepfather and a succession of nannies since her mother died in a car accident two years ago. Nannies leave because of the difficulty of caring for Adam, Lily’s severely autistic 4-year-old half brother. The newest, Suzanne, seems promising, but Lily is tired of feeling like a planet orbiting the sun Adam. When she meets blind Zoe, who will attend the same private middle school as Lily in the fall, Lily’s happy to have a friend. However, Zoe’s take on the plight of the captive dolphin, Nori, used in Adam’s therapy opens Lily’s eyes. She knows she must use her influence over her stepfather, who is consulting on Nori’s treatment for cancer (caused by an oil spill), to free the animal. Lily’s got several fine lines to walk, as she works to hold onto her new friend, convince her stepfather of the rightness of releasing Nori, and do what’s best for Adam. In her newest exploration of animal-human relationships, Rorby’s lonely, mature heroine faces tough but realistic situations. Siblings of children on the spectrum will identify with Lily. If the tale flirts with sentimentality and some of the characters are strident in their views, the whole never feels maudlin or didactic.
Dolphin lovers will appreciate this look at our complicated relationship with these marine mammals. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-67605-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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