Nimmo (``The Snow Spider'' trilogy) turns from Welsh legend to kelpie lore, weaving a delicate strand of fantasy into a story about siblings who discover their true identities while following an inborn call to save sea birds imperiled by environmental disasters. Left with a warmhearted aunt and a bitterly antagonistic grandmother—neither of whom they remember meeting before—while their mother (Leah) honeymoons with a new husband, Ned (11) and Nell (8) make friends with charismatic Arion, who seems to rise from the sea and with whom they are mysteriously at ease; he takes them to rescue sea birds after an oil spill, leading to a tragic confrontation between Nell and her witchlike grandmother. Finally, it turns out that Arion, who believes himself to be half-kelpie, is actually their father, and their mother was not Leah but ``Ultramarine,'' who died on a mission to save sea birds, and who was sister to Leah's first husband. As usual, the realistic part of Nimmo's story is the most interesting: Ned's protective role toward his withdrawn sister, their anguish on learning that Leah is not their birth mother, the bereaved grandmother's dementia. But the environmental plea is not as well integrated as in Ruth Park's My Sister Sif (1991), which dealt more skillfully and imaginatively with similar themes; still, this also holds attention with its aura of magic and mystery, appealing characters, and intricate, unusual plotting. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-525-44869-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
After witnessing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, Daniel is suddenly transported, at age 14, from his comfortable life in Frankfurt to a Polish ghetto, then to Auschwitz and Buchenwald—losing most of his family along the way, seeing Nazi brutality of both the casual and the calculated kind, and recording atrocities with a smuggled camera (``What has happened to me?...Who am I? Where am I going?''). Matas, explicating an exhibit of photos and other materials at the new United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, creates a convincing composite youth and experience—fictional but carefully based on survivors' accounts. It's a savage story with no attempt to soften the culpability of the German people; Daniel's profound anger is easier to understand than is his father's compassion or his sister's plea to ``chose love. Always choose love.'' Daniel survives to be reunited, after the war, with his wife-to-be, but his dying friend's last word echoes beyond the happy ending: ``Remember...'' An unusual undertaking, effectively carried out. Chronology; glossary. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-590-46920-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
If Rotten Ralph were a boy instead of a cat, he might be Joey, the hyperactive hero of Gantos's new book, except that Joey is never bad on purpose. In the first-person narration, it quickly becomes clear that he can't help himself; he's so wound up that he not only practically bounces off walls, he literally swallows his house key (which he wears on a string around his neck and which he pull back up, complete with souvenirs of the food he just ate). Gantos's straightforward view of what it's like to be Joey is so honest it hurts. Joey has been abandoned by his alcoholic father and, for a time, by his mother (who also drinks); his grandmother, just as hyperactive as he is, abuses Joey while he's in her care. One mishap after another leads Joey first from his regular classroom to special education classes and then to a special education school. With medication, counseling, and positive reinforcement, Joey calms down. Despite a lighthearted title and jacket painting, the story is simultaneously comic and horrific; Gantos takes readers right inside a human whirlwind where the ride is bumpy and often frightening, especially for Joey. But a river of compassion for the characters runs through the pages, not only for Joey but for his overextended mom and his usually patient, always worried (if only for their safety) teachers. Mature readers will find this harsh tale softened by unusual empathy and leavened by genuinely funny events. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-374-33664-4
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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