Through the diary of young Jim Hay, Wilson offers a soldier’s eye view of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and the events leading to it. Jim’s 16th Highland Light Infantry battalion lost 511 of its 750 men, one theater in a war of horrendous carnage—one million casualties by battle’s end—and ten million lives lost in the war overall. As in many war stories, Jim goes off to battle with great optimism, expecting early victory and a quick return to his girlfriend, Anne Cunningham. By mid-story, Jim says, “Still the war goes on,” and later: “Oh, Anne! I long to be somewhere clean, where the air is fresh and horror is only a thing of storybooks.” The diary includes letters, snippets from newspapers, and lines of poetry. The format has possibility but lacks imagination: the newspaper clippings don’t look or feel real, and the storytelling voice is flat, nothing that grabs emotions and involves the reader in the story. Burning lice over candles, descriptions of weather, mentioning books being read, the death of a father and mother, the shooting of a deserter, bloodshed on the battlefield—all are blandly related, with little power or weight. What will hold attention, though, is the hint of a family secret: “Every family has secrets. Ours is no different. One secret concerns the lad who wrote this diary.” Readers who persevere will be rewarded with a satisfactory conclusion in which the diarist’s fate and the family secret are revealed. May be of interest to readers of war novels or anyone wanting to learn more about WWI. (historical note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-55337-400-2
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
From England’s Children’s Laureate, a searing WWI-era tale of a close extended family repeatedly struck by adversity and injustice. On vigil in the trenches, 17-year-old Thomas Peaceful looks back at a childhood marked by guilt over his father’s death, anger at the shabby treatment his strong-minded mother receives from the local squire and others—and deep devotion to her, to his brain-damaged brother Big Joe, and especially to his other older brother Charlie, whom he has followed into the army by lying about his age. Weaving telling incidents together, Morpurgo surrounds the Peacefuls with mean-spirited people at home, and devastating wartime experiences on the front, ultimately setting readers up for a final travesty following Charlie’s refusal of an order to abandon his badly wounded brother. Themes and small-town class issues here may find some resonance on this side of the pond, but the particular cultural and historical context will distance the story from American readers—particularly as the pace is deliberate, and the author’s hints about where it’s all heading are too rare and subtle to create much suspense. (Fiction. 11-13, adult)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63648-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2004
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