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
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
Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions.
The efforts of six New Jersey kids to prevent the Nazis from winning World War II continue in this sequel to Westfallen (2024).
In 1944, Alice, Lawrence, and Artie struggle to correct their catastrophic error that, as Alice repeatedly has it, “DESTROYED THE FUTURE.” In 2023, Frances and Henry desperately research the changed history that finds the U.S. transformed into the Nazi-controlled tributary state of Westfallen. Jewish Lukas is largely confined, unable to help them or reach the magic shed that houses the radio that allows the kids to communicate across time, putting him at risk of losing his memories. Meanwhile, in 1944, Lawrence collects scrap metal alongside a kid who grows up to be a patient in the Home for Incurables, where Henry works in 2023. Could that kid hold the key to restoring the timeline? In this volume, Lawrence and Frances join Alice and Henry as first-person narrators, depriving Lukas and Artie of narrative agency. This lack is particularly distressing in Lukas’ case, as his isolation is affecting his personality. It falls to Henry and Alice to prod him into action—which is unfortunate for a novel that never names the Holocaust and omits persecution of the Jews from Alice’s father’s explanation of Nazi ideology (although antisemitism is an obvious feature of life in this alternate timeline). The crackling pace can’t obscure these lapses. Alice, Artie, and Frances are white, Lawrence is Black, and biracial Henry is Black and white.
Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781665950848
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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