A masterpiece from a gifted storyteller presents the tale of Noah and the Great Flood as anything but a joyride. Seen through the eyes of Noah’s youngest daughter, Timna, with occasional insertions by other members of the family, and even several animal passengers, the Ark is a filthy, festering, all too frail refuge on a strange and scary trip. With her gentle little brother Japheth and Zillah, a bitter abductee to whom he’s been forcibly married, Timna escapes her misfit family into the Ark’s dark, stinking holds whenever possible. There, she helps care not only for the suffering animals, but also for two children, Kittim and his baby sister, who have been secretly rescued from the floodwaters. McCaughrean looks between the lines of the Bible’s sketchy version of events, to the soul-searing effect, for instance, of hearing but having to ignore desperate pleas from outside as the floodwaters rise. She also tucks in ideas from the Odyssey and other ancient tales, plus poignant references to creatures like finucas and quexolans that no longer exist because they died on the voyage. She also, mercifully, suggests that God may have allowed more than just Noah’s family to see the rainbow at the end. Younger than Anne Provoost’s In the Shadow of the Ark (2004) and unlike Richard Monte’s The Flood Tales (2000), this is a breathlessly suspenseful tale as well as a brilliant exploration of doubt, certainty and spirit. It will sweep readers away. (Fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-076030-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
In this riveting futuristic novel, Spaz, a teenage boy with epilepsy, makes a dangerous journey in the company of an old man and a young boy. The old man, Ryter, one of the few people remaining who can read and write, has dedicated his life to recording stories. Ryter feels a kinship with Spaz, who unlike his contemporaries has a strong memory; because of his epilepsy, Spaz cannot use the mind probes that deliver entertainment straight to the brain and rot it in the process. Nearly everyone around him uses probes to escape their life of ruin and poverty, the result of an earthquake that devastated the world decades earlier. Only the “proovs,” genetically improved people, have grass, trees, and blue skies in their aptly named Eden, inaccessible to the “normals” in the Urb. When Spaz sets out to reach his dying younger sister, he and his companions must cross three treacherous zones ruled by powerful bosses. Moving from one peril to the next, they survive only with help from a proov woman. Enriched by Ryter’s allusions to nearly lost literature and full of intriguing, invented slang, the skillful writing paints two pictures of what the world could look like in the future—the burned-out Urb and the pristine Eden—then shows the limits and strengths of each. Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty (1993) has again created a compelling set of characters that engage the reader with their courage and kindness in a painful world that offers hope, if no happy endings. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-08758-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
