If Boudicca's tribe was a matriarchy and she was Queen in her own right, then her vengeance on the Romans for assaulting her person and raping her daughters takes on a different aspect, at once grander and more human. On that premise, Rosemary Sutcliff has recast the life of Boudicca (Boadicea) as it might have appeared to Cadwan, Harper to the Queen—who first fetches back the determined six-year-old when she runs off after the King's war-band. A small wooden sword and a small song are her compensations then; when she has a great sword like her father's, Cadwan tells her, he will make her a great song of the Victories of a Queen. At 13, she accepts and does not accept Prasutagus as her husband; but he has a will and a patience to match hers, and in time she is joyously his wife and the mother of two girls. The tribes, lightly tied to Rome before, must now turn in their weapons—save for the unsuspected swords of the women. A new Emperor, Nero, comes to the throne, and Britain has a new Governor, the celebrated general Paulinus. In this time of changes, of more and harsher regulation, Prasutagus sickens and dies. What could be more obvious to Nero, in the absence of a male heir, than to absorb his people into the Province of Britain? This we hear casually from a young Roman tribune, Gneus Julius Agricola, whose letters to his mother begin at this juncture and thereafter counterpoint Cadwan's narrative. (British children, of course, have the advantage of knowing that this thoughtful, unbellicose youth will be Britain's greatest Roman governor.) Roman officials appear, a drunken insult ends in mass outrage, and Boudicca—her blue eyes now "a dark forest" to Cadwan—rallies the tribes to drive the tyrants out. So begins the onslaught that levels cities, leaves captive women hanging "like dreadful white fruit. . . from the branches of the dark and ancient trees," and climaxes in Londinium with wholesale crucifixion—"a thing that we have learned from the Romans themselves." Then: stalemate. But Paulinus, heading north again, devises a way to turn back the massed might of the tribes; and, Rome triumphant, Boudicca returns home (in this version) to drink poison from the cup of Roman glass that was Prasutagus' gift, her Song of a Queen's Victories still unmade. A stirring, quietly eloquent miniature for young people just dipping their toes in these dark and turbulent waters.
Pub Date: March 1, 1979
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: T.Y. Crowell
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1979
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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