Juxtaposing the past and the future, this potent story explores the societal consequences of diversity and individuality.
It’s 2407 and the almost 16-year-old Gemm 16884 lives in a serene Orwellian society where the denizens are trained to believe that “diversity begets hostility,” and that psychological troubles can be banished by sipping on a serotonin shake. But Gemm is not like his kinsmen; he’s afflicted with ungovernable emotions and a “deviant” passion for music. To avoid being “recycled,” he agrees to undergo a frightening cure, a mind-adventure that will make the association of music and the emotions it engenders unbearable. He wakes up in 1348 Strasbourg, Germany, where he’s known as Johannes the Jew. Unlike the fairly standard rendering of the future, this part of the story, opening just as the Black Death begins to sweep through the population, fairly pulsates with energy and freshness; it is based on a real event and packed with spine-tingling historical detail. Johannes has to cope with virulent anti-Semitism in a society that is anything but tranquil.
Levitin (Yesterday’s Child, 1997, etc.) cheats a little to give the future world an upbeat ending, but even so pulls off an unusual mix of science and historical fiction that is as suspenseful and as it is unsettling. (bibliography) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201827-1
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
Did you like this book?
Namioka (Den of the White Fox, 1997, etc.) offers readers a glimpse of the ritual of foot-binding, and a surprising heroine whose life is determined by her rejection of that ritual. Ailin is spirited—her family thinks uncontrollable—even at age five, in her family’s compound in China in 1911, she doesn’t want to have her feet bound, especially after Second Sister shows Ailin her own bound feet and tells her how much it hurts. Ailin can see already how bound feet will restrict her movements, and prevent her from running and playing. Her father takes the revolutionary step of permitting her to leave her feet alone, even though the family of Ailin’s betrothed then breaks off the engagement. Ailin goes to the missionary school and learns English; when her father dies and her uncle cuts off funds for tuition, she leaves her family to become a nanny for an American missionary couple’s children. She learns all the daily household chores that were done by servants in her own home, and finds herself, painfully, cut off from her own culture and separate from the Americans. At 16, she decides to go with the missionaries when they return to San Francisco, where she meets and marries another Chinese immigrant who starts his own restaurant. The metaphor of things bound and unbound is a ribbon winding through this vivid narrative; the story moves swiftly, while Ailin is a brave and engaging heroine whose difficult choices reflect her time and her gender. (Fiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-32666-1
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
Did you like this book?
Couloumbis’s debut carries a family through early stages of grief with grace, sensitivity, and a healthy dose of laughter. In the wake of Baby’s sudden death, the three Deans remaining put up no resistance when Aunt Patty swoops in to take away 12-year-old Willa Jo and suddenly, stubbornly mute JoAnn, called “Little Sister,” in the misguided belief that their mother needs time alone. Well-meaning but far too accustomed to getting her way, Aunt Patty buys the children unwanted new clothes, enrolls them in a Bible day camp for one disastrous day, and even tries to line up friends for them. While politely tolerating her hovering, the two inseparable sisters find their own path, hooking up with a fearless, wonderfully plainspoken teenaged neighbor and her dirt-loving brothers, then, acting on an obscure but ultimately healing impulse, climbing out onto the roof to get a bit closer to Heaven, and Baby. Willa Jo tells the tale in a nonlinear, back-and-forth fashion that not only prepares readers emotionally for her heartrending account of Baby’s death, but also artfully illuminates each character’s depths and foibles; the loving relationship between Patty and her wiser husband Hob is just as complex and clearly drawn as that of Willa Jo and Little Sister. Lightening the tone by poking gentle fun at Patty and some of her small-town neighbors, the author creates a cast founded on likable, real-seeming people who grow and change in response to tragedy. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23389-X
Page Count: 211
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1999
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2022 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
