In this suspenseful survival story, a 12-year-old Guatemalan boy and his 4-year-old sister escape their burning home, where soldiers have killed their family, and try to make their way to the US. Santiago, who narrates, has grown up poor in a small village of indigenous people who descended from the Mayans. He speaks some Spanish, which helps as he and Angelina make their way by horse and then as stowaways in trucks to Lake Izabal. They find their uncle’s cayuco, a small kayak made from a tree, and with the help of a neighbor, set sail. The bulk of the novel takes place on water, fighting storms, evading pirates, and fishing with a homemade hook. Santiago learns as he goes, after only one day’s instruction in sailing, and he improvises cleverly, as described in satisfying detail. The boy recovers from setbacks at the same time as he tries to keep Angelina’s spirits up despite near starvation and constant danger. The interactions between the siblings show Santiago’s courage and love, while Angelina’s well-drawn, childlike personality provides moments of lightness as well as pathos. In the beginning, the narrative voice tends to be stilted, avoiding contractions and using inverted sentences such as “This I know she likes.” But as the action picks up, Santiago’s narration reflects the urgency of their situation as they sail, against all odds, across the Gulf of Mexico towards Florida. Mikaelsen’s (Touching Spirit Bear, 2001, etc.) fans, who expect him to produce a gripping tale of overcoming dangers, will not be disappointed. (author’s note) (Fiction. 11+)
Pub Date: May 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97745-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A bone-chilling tale not to be ignored by the universe.
If Anne Frank had been a boy, this is the story her male counterpart might have told. At least, the very beginning of this historical novel reads as such.
It is 1939, and Yanek Gruener is a 10-year old Jew in Kraków when the Nazis invade Poland. His family is forced to live with multiple other families in a tiny apartment as his beloved neighborhood of Podgórze changes from haven to ghetto in a matter of weeks. Readers will be quickly drawn into this first-person account of dwindling freedoms, daily humiliations and heart-wrenching separations from loved ones. Yet as the story darkens, it begs the age-old question of when and how to introduce children to the extremes of human brutality. Based on the true story of the life of Jack Gruener, who remarkably survived not just one, but 10 different concentration camps, this is an extraordinary, memorable and hopeful saga told in unflinching prose. While Gratz’s words and early images are geared for young people, and are less gory than some accounts, Yanek’s later experiences bear a closer resemblance to Elie Wiesel’s Night than more middle-grade offerings, such as Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars. It may well support classroom work with adult review first.
A bone-chilling tale not to be ignored by the universe. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-45901-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
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