Readers will rally behind the story’s determined and courageous protagonist.
A girl slowly realizes that life with her father is not as it should be.
In this novel narrated in the first person, Rebecca relates the strangeness of life with her father, whom she refers to by name as Joe. They frequently move around Toronto; she shops in thrift stores, only buying the baggy clothes that he insists upon; she has never attended school; and she rarely has friends her own age. Joe, who carries no government ID, controls her life, not even allowing a news photographer to take her picture at a book festival. When Rebecca asks about their family, he tells her that they are all dead. Rebecca, whose voice is precise and slightly formal, finds kinship in characters from literature. Inspired by her reading of Harriet the Spy, she eavesdrops and, à la Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, she appreciates the kindness of her adult neighbors—especially Mrs. Martino, the motherly Italian neighbor who loves to cook, and Phoebe, a reclusive movie star who encourages her to write down her story. Slowly, memories surface: Recollections of a bunny and a fascination with Audrey Hepburn lead her to ask questions that Joe will not answer. It is Rebecca’s initiative that ultimately leads to the resolution of this absorbing tale. This short novel deals with family dysfunction through the eyes of a young person through a central mystery that gradually unfurls.
Readers will rally behind the story’s determined and courageous protagonist. (recipe, author interview) (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: April 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-88995-619-3
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Stands out neither as a folk-tale retelling, a coming-of-age story, nor a Holocaust novel.
A Holocaust tale with a thin “Hansel and Gretel” veneer from the author of The Devil’s Arithmetic (1988).
Chaim and Gittel, 14-year-old twins, live with their parents in the Lodz ghetto, forced from their comfortable country home by the Nazis. The siblings are close, sharing a sign-based twin language; Chaim stutters and communicates primarily with his sister. Though slowly starving, they make the best of things with their beloved parents, although it’s more difficult once they must share their tiny flat with an unpleasant interfaith couple and their Mischling (half-Jewish) children. When the family hears of their impending “wedding invitation”—the ghetto idiom for a forthcoming order for transport—they plan a dangerous escape. Their journey is difficult, and one by one, the adults vanish. Ultimately the children end up in a fictional child labor camp, making ammunition for the German war effort. Their story effectively evokes the dehumanizing nature of unremitting silence. Nevertheless, the dense, distancing narrative (told in a third-person contemporaneous narration focused through Chaim with interspersed snippets from Gittel’s several-decades-later perspective) has several consistency problems, mostly regarding the relative religiosity of this nominally secular family. One theme seems to be frustration with those who didn’t fight back against overwhelming odds, which makes for a confusing judgment on the suffering child protagonists.
Stands out neither as a folk-tale retelling, a coming-of-age story, nor a Holocaust novel. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-25778-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development.
A portal fantasy survivor story from an established devotional writer.
Fourteen-year-old Eva’s maternal grandmother lives on a grand estate in England; Eva and her academic parents live in New Haven, Connecticut. When she and Mum finally visit Carrick Hall, Eva is alternately resentful at what she’s missed and overjoyed to connect with sometimes aloof Grandmother. Alongside questions of Eva’s family history, the summer is permeated by a greater mystery surrounding the work of fictional children’s fantasy writer A.H.W. Clifton, who wrote a Narnialike series that Eva adores. As it happens, Grandmother was one of several children who entered and ruled Ternival, the world of Clifton’s books; the others perished in 1952, and Grandmother hasn’t recovered. The Narnia influences are strong—Eva’s grandmother is the Susan figure who’s repudiated both magic and God—and the ensuing trauma has created rifts that echo through her relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. An early narrative implication that Eva will visit Ternival to set things right barely materializes in this series opener; meanwhile, the religious parable overwhelms the magic elements as the story winds on. The serviceable plot is weakened by shallow characterization. Little backstory appears other than that which immediately concerns the plot, and Eva tends to respond emotionally as the story requires—resentful when her seething silence is required, immediately trusting toward characters readers need to trust. Major characters are cued white.
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development. (author’s note, map, author Q&A) (Religious fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593194454
Page Count: 384
Publisher: WaterBrook
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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