Tag: young adult fiction

Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan (YA)

Tween & Teen Tuesday

Every Tuesday, we review either a juvenile (J) or young adult (YA) book

Homeless Bird

Homeless Bird (YA)

Gloria Whelan

Thirteen-year old Koly is arranged to be married and must leave everything and everyone she loves behind.  When fate intervenes, she finds herself alone in a strange city.  Her favorite poem tells about a flock of birds that fly day and night, except the homeless bird. It always flies to somewhere else.  With no money and no hope for the future, where does this homeless bird fly now?

Written in the first-person narrative, Homeless Bird gives us a story of courage, hope, determination, and love.  In Koly’s own words, the reader experiences and feels firsthand her sense of loss, betrayal, heartache, and despair.  Whelan’s love for Koly shows through her compassionate writing and wonderful storytelling.  In the end, she gives us a heroine that not only flies, she soars.

Rating: 5/5

The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen (YA)

Tween & Teen Tuesday

Every Tuesday, we review either a juvenile (J) or young adult (YA) book

 

The Devil’s Arithmetic

Jane Yolen (Young Adult Historical Fiction)

The goal is to stay alive.  One day after the next after the next.  One plus one plus one.  The devil’s arithmetic.

Thirteen-year old Hannah Stern is not looking forward to celebrating the upcoming Passover Seder.  She is bored with her family’s stories of the past.  In fact, every Jewish holiday seems to be yet another occasion to relive those bad memories.  But this year, Hannah will be transported into the past and it won’t be long before she desires the comfort and safety of what the future once held.

This period in history is horrific and harrowing, and the stories told by the Holocaust survivors still tear at our very soul and question our humanity.  In the afterward, Yolen describes the heroism of the camp’s survivors: “To witness.  To remember.  These were the only victories of the camps.”  This story and its characters will haunt you long after you’ve turned the last page.  May we never forget.

Rating: 5/5