A sorrowful yet ultimately redeeming tale.
A grandson’s loving homage to his war-scarred grandfather.
Michael has been told to never stare at his grandfather when he comes for rare visits. During World War II, Grandpa served on a British merchant vessel that was torpedoed and engulfed in flames, leaving his face a grotesque mask. When Michael turns 12, he starts spending summers with Grandpa, fishing off the Isles of Scilly. It is only when Michael is older, a high school graduate, that the grandfather recounts what happened in all its horrific detail. Facially disfigured, missing fingers and turning to drink, he was abandoned by his wife, who took their daughter, the narrator’s mother, with her. “No one wants a monster for a husband. No one wants half a man….” At his death, he leaves a note for his grandson asking that the family gather together to scatter his ashes in the sea. They do, and gannets, a sign of good luck, fly overhead. Morpurgo writes with great sensitivity and grace, dedicating the book to a World War II burn victim who underwent experimental reconstructive surgery. The ink-and–screen-printed illustrations in blues and oranges vividly contrast the violence of the recalled violence with the calm serenity of water. Veterans are still returning from war with scars and trauma; this short story may help families heal.
A sorrowful yet ultimately redeeming tale. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7747-3
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
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
Winning views of a family pulling together, of young people stumbling into adolescence, and of an entertaining if...
Winning a competitive eating contest is David’s only hope of avoiding being grounded for life after he does something stupid with his mother’s credit card.
Already an avid eater and a fan of the “sport,” David Miller, 14, figures that he’s really going to have to up his game after accidently spending $2,000 in an online auction for what is billed as the very hot-dog half that cost pro eater Jooky Garafalo last year’s Nathan’s Famous contest. Fortunately, local pizzeria Pigorino’s is sponsoring a competition at the Iowa State Fair with a $5,000 first prize. Unfortunately, David will have to beat out not only a roster of gifted amateurs to make and win the finals, but also a pair of professionals—notably the renowned but unscrupulous El Gurgitator. As much gourmet as gourmand, David not only vividly chronicles awe-inspiring gustatory feats as he gears up and passes through qualifiers, but describes food with unseemly intensity: “Disks of pepperoni shimmer and glisten on a sea of molten mozzarella.” Even better, though, is the easy, natural way he interacts with Mal, a younger brother whose neurological disability (the term “autistic” is banned from family discourse) transforms but does not conceal a rich internal life. Other subplots, such as a developing relationship between David’s longtime friends Hayden (who is evidently white) and Korean-American Cyn, further enrich a tale in which his own tests and his loving, white family’s determined quest to discover what they dub “Mal’s Rules” both result in thrilling, hard-won triumphs.
Winning views of a family pulling together, of young people stumbling into adolescence, and of an entertaining if controversial pursuit, “reverse-eating events” and all. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9070-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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