Clear of stance and cogent of theme.
Tensions rise when a cadre of Hitler Youth arrives in a young student’s Bavarian town.
“They stood out like skunks in their brown shirts, black pants, and jackboots.” Rolf is upset to see the deteriorating relationship between his always-angry older brother, Romer, and their widowed father. But he’s more disturbed by evidence that Romer is drifting toward sinister, spiderlike Hans and the squad of uniformed thugs behind him—particularly after the distribution of recruitment leaflets is followed by arson and the beating of a local Jewish merchant as bystanders watch…some approvingly. Matters come to a head when Hitler speaks at a mass rally; Rolf comes away from the experience firm in his conviction that the Nazi takeover must be resisted. This fast-moving, stirring tale is set in 1929, but along with a timeline that begins with Hitler’s birth and ends in 1935, the author intersperses helpful flashbacks about the end of the First World War, the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, and other events presented as news stories. He also makes explicit the book’s cautionary purpose: “It’s common for us who live in democracies around the world to say, ‘it can’t happen here,’” he writes in his afterword. “It can.”
Clear of stance and cogent of theme. (glossary) (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9781665947206
Page Count: 160
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
This weave of perceptive, well-told tales wears its agenda with unusual grace.
Two young people of different generations get profound lessons in the tragic, enduring legacy of war.
Raised on the thrilling yarns of his great-grandpa Jacob and obsessed with both World War II and first-person–shooter video games, Trevor is eager to join the 93-year-old vet when he is invited to revisit the French town his unit had helped to liberate. In alternating chapters, the overseas trip retraces the parallel journeys of two young people—Trevor, 12, and Jacob, in 1944, just five years older—with similarly idealized visions of what war is like as they travel both then and now from Fort Benning to Omaha Beach and then through Normandy. Jacob’s wartime experiences are an absorbing whirl of hard fighting, sudden death, and courageous acts spurred by necessity…but the modern trip turns suspenseful too, as mysterious stalkers leave unsettling tokens and a series of hostile online posts that hint that Jacob doesn’t have just German blood on his hands. Korman acknowledges the widely held view of World War II as a just war but makes his own sympathies plain by repeatedly pointing to the unavoidable price of conflict: “Wars may have winning sides, but everybody loses.” Readers anticipating a heavy-handed moral will appreciate that Trevor arrives at a refreshingly realistic appreciation of video games’ pleasures and limitations. As his dad puts it: “War makes a better video game….But if you’re looking for a way to live, I’ll take peace every time.”
This weave of perceptive, well-told tales wears its agenda with unusual grace. (Fiction/historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-29020-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
With the likes of Peter Raven, Tom Cringle and even Jacky Faber roaming the literary sea lanes, not even the frequent...
In a nautical tale that leaks from stem to stern, a printer’s son survives one unlikely adventure after another after being shanghaied by British privateers.
First orphaned, then sold into indenture on a false charge, then clubbed and carried off to sea, 13-year-old Jameson finds himself sailing into the Caribbean aboard the Destiny, Captain “Attack Jack” Edwards commanding. Jameson inexplicably worms his way into the captain’s good graces despite being sullen, accident-prone and so slow on the uptake that he has to be told twice why the ship doesn’t fly British colors in enemy waters. He goes on at Edwards’ behest to bury a packet of maps in a secret cave during a wild storm for no good reason (except perhaps the general paucity of dramatic scenes), then, before sailing off to deliver the aforementioned maps to Queen Anne (this is 1713), he rescues the captain from being hanged as a pirate by forging a Letter of Marque. The author displays an incomplete knowledge of nautical terminology and the techniques of letterpress printing, and the climactic courtroom scene is so contrived that even Perry Mason would wince.
With the likes of Peter Raven, Tom Cringle and even Jacky Faber roaming the literary sea lanes, not even the frequent references to dung, dirt, blood and noxious foods are enough to float such an underresearched, arbitrarily plotted clinker. (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-56145-633-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2012
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