In 1687, when LaSalle’s attempted French settlement in present-day Texas foundered, ten-year-old Pierre Talon left his family to go with the explorer for help but got no further than a Hasinai Indian town, where he grew into manhood before Spaniards came to “rescue” him and he had to choose an identity. Frightened at first by the Hasinai’s strange ways, Pierre is won over by their care during his illness and comes to admire and emulate their skills, becoming part of the community, complete with appropriate tattoos. He learns that people can be complicated: Friends can also be murderers, “savages” may simply be people whose customs are different. Based on historical record and the little information available about the people of the Caddo Confederacy, this moving coming-of-age story is told in third person with the historical background smoothly integrated and supplemented by a character list, map and author’s end note. Like Pierre, readers will find the Hasinai more civilized than the Europeans and sympathize with his difficult choice. A well-imagined window into a little-known past. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2152-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
PROFILES
An outstanding new edition of this popular modern classic (Newbery Award, 1961), with an introduction by Zena Sutherland and...
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0-395-53680-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
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