In a carefully researched novel set in the medieval period, the author of The Midwife’s Apprentice (1996 Newbery winner) depicts another vivid heroine, left alone to make her place in the world. Having been raised motherless in a fine manor under the tutelage of Father Leufredus, Matilda has learned to read and write Greek and Latin and to pray seven times a day. When the priest leaves her with Red Peg, the bonesetter in Blood and Bone Alley, Matilda disapproves of her new home, her new “mentor” and the requirements of her new job . . . which include tending the fire, cooking, restraining patients, and helping set bones rather than reading, writing, and praying. Gradually Matilda sees the truth: that Father Leufredus will never return, that he never spoke of God’s love, and that she was lonely in her former home. She acknowledges the goodness of those who make up her new community, especially the strong women like Peg, with their clever fingers and common sense, whose lives are hard but who laugh more than they frown . . . women who contrast with the men whom Matilda has been conditioned to hold in deference. At the conclusion Matilda comes to terms with the fact that she cannot predict her own future but “. . . whatever it was she believed she could do.” This has much to commend it: a robust setting, the author’s deft way with imagery (Peg’s decent face is “beslobbered with freckles”) and an impressive command of medieval medical detail. It is laced with humor, in part due to the structural connective tissue formed by the saint’s scornful answers to Matilda’s unceasing prayerful pleas. But in the end, Matilda herself comes off, as the saints themselves conclude, as a rather tiresome prig whose journey towards self-discovery, while rich in incident, may not hold quite enough overall plot tension to compel every reader. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2000
ISBN: 0-395-88156-0
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
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
paper 0-679-89198-6 This Stepping Stone entry takes on the story of Balto, which, in its facts, is thrilling: a Siberian husky becomes lead dog on his team and tracks through a raging blizzard to bring desperately needed antitoxin serum to Nome in 1925. Kimmel (Ice Story, p. 66, etc.) explains how dangerous diphtheria was at the time, how isolated Nome was, and how severe the weather condition, but the telling is often mired in awkward metaphors and repetition. Emily Morgan, the nurse who worked beside Dr. Curtis Welch in Nome, isn’t mentioned until halfway through the book. Anthropomorphic analysis of Balto’s “feelings” and “thoughts” are included, detracting from the tale for all but the most fanatical of dog-lovers. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Nonfiction, ages 8-11)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-679-99198-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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