Despite this point, children will find this an exciting, eye-opening read.
This first in the Hidden Histories series of middle-grade novels highlights an episode in which New York City’s Foundling Hospital sent white youth to unfamiliar Arizona Territory to be adopted by Mexican Catholics, raising the ire of Protestant Anglos and revealing the depths of their prejudice.
Ever since Rory Fitzpatrick and her baby sister, Violet, arrived at the Foundling after their parents died, Rory has worked to remain with Vi. It seems for naught when Sister Anna decides to send Vi west to be placed. Rather than lose her last family member, Rory stows away on the train, appearing only when she cannot be sent back. It’s a good thing, too, as the nuns cannot care for the tots without Rory’s help. And when they arrive in Clifton to a riot caused by desperate, angry white women, only Rory fully understands the threat. Although Rory’s heroism is improbable, youngsters will find it heartening. Rory escapes when kidnapped, then negotiates a deal to secure safe passage for the majority of orphans and nuns—all before the happy ending. The injustice, drama and action will have readers riveted. A historical note sheds some light on the complicated issues. However, why so many women gave up their babies will warrant discussion, given Rory’s conflicted view of the matter (she makes a somewhat disturbing distinction between being an orphan and a foundling).
Despite this point, children will find this an exciting, eye-opening read. (Historical fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62091-623-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come.
Heroic deeds await Isaac after his little sister runs into the school basement and is captured by elves.
Even though their school is a spooky old castle transplanted stone by stone from Germany, Isaac and his two friends, Max and Emma, little suspect that an entire magical kingdom lies beneath—a kingdom run by elves, policed by oversized rats in uniform, and populated by captives who start out human but undergo transformative “weirding.” These revelations await Isaac and sidekicks as they nerve themselves to trail his bossy younger sib, Lily, through a shadowy storeroom and into a tunnel, across a wide lake, and into a city lit by half-human fireflies, where they are cast together into a dungeon. Can they escape before they themselves start changing? Gibson pits his doughty rescuers against such adversaries as an elven monarch who emits truly kingly belches and a once-human jailer with a self-picking nose. Tests of mettle range from a riddle contest to a face-off with the menacing head rat Shelfliver, and a helter-skelter chase finally leads rescuers and rescued back to the aboveground. Plainly, though, there is further rescuing to be done.
A fizzy mix of low humor and brisk action, with promise of more of both to come. (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-255-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
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