The Dear America series has a system, and it often works: a diary format, historical pictures at the back, often with commentary, recipes, or other specifics, and some referents to tie the fictional events to time and place. Murphy, usually a wonderful writer (Pick and Shovel Poet, 2000, etc.) who has written other titles in this series, produces a workmanlike diary without much spirit or flair but with a truly compelling story. Sarah Jane is only 14 when her schoolteacher father succumbs to diphtheria; to keep from being sent to an orphanage, she courageously offers herself as the schoolteacher for the prairie town of Broken Bow. The boarding house where she lives has a pinched and suspicious woman running it and the sod house given over for schooling is a wreck, but Sarah Jane, holding to her own native gumption and her father’s memory, takes it on. Her students vary wildly in age and ability, and one set of siblings only speaks German. In a climactic entry, she describes roping the children together in a line so they could make their way back to town in a blinding snowstorm after the soddy’s roof falls in. A fictional epilogue wraps up Sarah Jane’s life as though it were true, one of the more troubling requirements of the series. Murphy’s historical notes at the back fill out the details of early American education and prairie life. His fiction allows the reader to learn attitudes and hardships in the struggle for survival on the prairie through the mind of a participant. (photos, recipe, acknowledgements) (Historical fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-43810-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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