by Mark A. Cooper ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2010
How does a boy turn into a hero? Growing up in Hong Kong, Jason never thought about it. Having lost his mother at birth, been neglected by his father and raised by a succession of nannies, Jason is drawn to the discipline of the martial arts at an early age. He conquers them one by one, earning black belts in all. Looking for new challenges, it’s not long before he’s sneaking onto the nearby naval base to teach himself to fly on flight simulators. By the time his father relocates them to England, this 11-year-old is not like the other boys at school. But it isn’t until he joins the Sea Cadets and goes on a training exercise off Jakarta that he has the opportunity to put all his training to good use. Well constructed, full of adolescent wish-fulfillment and almost believable, this is an undemanding page-turner in the spirit of Alex Rider and Co. that will appeal to parents as well as kids. Let the sequels begin. (Thriller. 12 & up)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4022-3999-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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by Alan Gratz ; Ruth Gruener ; Jack Gruener ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2013
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
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by Alan Gratz ; illustrated by Judit Tondora
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by Alan Gratz ; illustrated by Brent Schoonover
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by Alan Gratz
by Jennifer A. Nielsen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 2018
Sensitive subject matter that could have benefited from a subtler, more sober touch.
A Jewish girl joins up with Polish resistance groups to fight for her people against the evils of the Holocaust.
Chaya Lindner is forcibly separated from her family when they are consigned to the Jewish ghetto in Krakow. The 16-year-old is taken in by the leaders of Akiva, a fledgling Jewish resistance group that offers her the opportunity to become a courier, using her fair coloring to pass for Polish and sneak into ghettos to smuggle in supplies and information. Chaya’s missions quickly become more dangerous, taking her on a perilous journey from a disastrous mission in Krakow to the ghastly ghetto of Lodz and eventually to Warsaw to aid the Jews there in their gathering uprising inside the walls of the ghetto. Through it all, she is partnered with a secretive young girl whom she is reluctant to trust. The trajectory of the narrative skews toward the sensational, highlighting moments of resistance via cinematic action sequences but not pausing to linger on the emotional toll of the Holocaust’s atrocities. Younger readers without sufficient historical knowledge may not appreciate the gravity of the events depicted. The principal characters lack depth, and their actions and the situations they find themselves in often require too much suspension of disbelief to pass for realism.
Sensitive subject matter that could have benefited from a subtler, more sober touch. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-14847-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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by Jennifer A. Nielsen ; illustrated by Jennifer A. Nielsen
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