In this fun, folksy outing set in 1923, 12-year-old Eben McAllister has seven days to find seven wonders in Sassafras Springs, Mo. Convinced that his ordinary berg has nothing on the Seven Wonders of the World, Eben reluctantly accepts his father’s challenge: “I just think there’s no use searching the world for Wonders when you can’t see the marvels right under your own nose.” What follows is a weeklong odyssey where Eben asks people he’s known his whole life if they have anything special lying around. They do. It’s not the objects themselves that are so extraordinary—an applehead doll named Miss Zeldy, a rickety bookcase, a table—as much as his neighbors’ magical stories that accompany them that will inspire everything from chuckles to chills. The matter-of-fact first-person narrative is refreshing, as Eben is neither overly precocious nor terribly troubled—just a small-town boy with wanderlust who learns that an explorer doesn’t have to travel too far afield to have an adventure, but that leaving town still sounds awfully good. (Fiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-689-87136-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
Ohkwa'ri and his twin sister, Otsi:stia, 11, are late-15th century Mohawks living in what would become New York State. Both are exemplary young people: He is brave, kind, and respectful of his elders, and she is gentle and wise beyond her years. One day Ohkwa'ri hears an older youth, Grabber, and his cronies planning to raid a nearby Abenaki village, in violation of the Great League of Peace to which all the Iroquois Nations have been committed for decades. When Ohkwa'ri reports what he has heard to the tribal elders he makes a deadly enemy of Grabber. Grabber's opportunity for revenge comes when the entire tribe gathers for the great game of Tekwaarathon (later, lacrosse). Ohkwa'ri knows that he will be in great danger during the long day of play and will have to use all his wits and skills to save himself and his honor. Bruchac (Between Earth and Sky, p. 445, etc.) saturates his novel with suspense, generating an exciting story that also offers an in-depth look at Native American life centuries ago. The book also offers excellent insights into the powerful role of women in what most readers will presume was a male-dominated society. Thoroughly researched; beautifully written. (Fiction. 8- 11)
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0140385045
Page Count: 155
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
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