Readers viscerally experience the Holocaust in this gripping novel.
Three Austrian children experience the ravages of World War II.
On Leo Grunberg’s ninth birthday in 1936, he and his two best friends, Elsa and Max, celebrate by riding Vienna’s Ferris wheel. Leo collides with English tourists, leading to a friendly connection that later proves lifesaving when the couple sponsor visas for Leo and his mother. Mr. Grunberg is tragically sent first to Dachau and then Auschwitz. Elsa, whose family, like Leo’s, is Jewish, moves to Prague to escape growing dangers in Austria, but their new lives are shortly upended: Elsa is unable to escape via the Kindertransport, and she is sent with her family to Auschwitz. Christian Max’s father joins the Nazi Party and forbids him to spend time with Jewish friends; initially resentful, Max ultimately joins the Hitler Youth. His father is assigned to work at Dachau and later Auschwitz—where Max becomes a guard—and Max crosses paths with Mr. Grunberg in both locations, each time shunning the man who treated him so kindly. He also meets Elsa in an unforgettably dramatic scene in which he must confront his own humanity. These coincidences may strain credulity, but this sometimes-horrific, sometimes-sentimental page-turner exposes readers to the entire arc of the Holocaust. A note explains how the author’s father’s family escaped the Nazis after meeting a British couple in a similar manner to that portrayed in the book.
Readers viscerally experience the Holocaust in this gripping novel. (resources, further reading) (Historical fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-9965-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging
Audrey Rose Wadsworth, 17, would rather perform autopsies in her uncle’s dark laboratory than find a suitable husband, as is the socially acceptable rite of passage for a young, white British lady in the late 1800s.
The story immediately brings Audrey into a fractious pairing with her uncle’s young assistant, Thomas Cresswell. The two engage in predictable rounds of “I’m smarter than you are” banter, while Audrey’s older brother, Nathaniel, taunts her for being a girl out of her place. Horrific murders of prostitutes whose identities point to associations with the Wadsworth estate prompt Audrey to start her own investigation, with Thomas as her sidekick. Audrey’s narration is both ponderous and polemical, as she sees her pursuit of her goals and this investigation as part of a crusade for women. She declares that the slain aren’t merely prostitutes but “daughters and wives and mothers,” but she’s also made it a point to deny any alignment with the profiled victims: “I am not going as a prostitute. I am simply blending in.” Audrey also expresses a narrow view of her desired gender role, asserting that “I was determined to be both pretty and fierce,” as if to say that physical beauty and liking “girly” things are integral to feminism. The graphic descriptions of mutilated women don’t do much to speed the pace.
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging . (Historical thriller. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27349-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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