Book Three of the His Fair Assassins series both aided and abetted my desire to take refuge from my overwhelming work and study load and alleviated and exacerbated my anxiety around ever successfully wrestling those work and study things into line. But I’m done reading the gripping historical fiction series now, I think, for there […]
Always a Witch
Available now ▪ Clarion Books ▪ Ages 12 and up
Since the gripping conclusion of Once A Witch, Tamsin Greene has been haunted by her grandmother's prophecy that she will soon be forced to make a crucial decision—one so terrible that it could harm her family forever. Story: When Tasmin discovers that her enemy, Alistair Knight, went back in time to Victorian-era New York in order to destroy her family, she is forced to follow him into the past. Stranded all alone in the nineteenth century, Tamsin soon finds herself disguised as a lady's maid in the terrifying mansion of the evil Knight family, avoiding the watchful eye of the vicious matron, La Spider, and fending off the advances of Liam Knight. As time runs out, both families square off in a thrilling display of magic. And to her horror, Tamsin finally understands the nature of her fateful choice.
Story behind the story: From author Carolyn MacCullough: "Writing Always a Witch, the sequel to Once a Witch, was a bittersweet experience for me. I was so happy to be back with these characters that I had come to love, yet I knew I was going to be saying goodbye to them soon. Also, I was a brand new mom for the first time and was stumbling around in a stage of euphoric exhaustion. All of a sudden, I looked at my main character, Tamsin, differently. I was putting her in some dangerous situations and I couldn’t help but ask myself, “oh, no! What will her mother think of this?” The importance of family, which was always a central theme of the books, became even more resonant for me."
PRAISE FOR BOOK ONE, Once A Witch:
We featured Once A
Just out! April 20, 2010 • Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers • Ages 10 - 14
From an award-winning author, a powerful coming-of-age story that brings a tumultuous time in American history vividly to life.
Story: It's the end of summer October 1962. Julie Klostermeyer's world is turning upside down. All she hears from her parents and teachers and on the news is the Russian threat and the Cuban Missile Crisis. And things aren't much better at home. Her best friend doesn't seem interested in being her friend anymore -- he'd rather hang out with the new boys instead. When Patsy moves in, things are looking up. Patsy is fearless, and she challenges the neighborhood boys to see who's better, strong, faster: a war between the boys and the girls.
All this talk of war makes Juliet uneasy. As the challenges become more and more dangerous, Juliet has to decide what she stands for -- and what's worth fighting for.
Story behind the story: Best to hear it straight from the source, so I give you Printz Honor (for Hard Love) award-winning author (and former librarian!) Ellen Wittlinger:
"Juliet lives in a small town in a house attached to the grocery store her parents own. Just like I did. I was fourteen in 1962 when President Kennedy went on television one October evening to announce that the United States was on the brink of nuclear war. For a week we were terrified, listening for approaching bombers, crawling under desks at school, wondering if those families with bomb shelters would live while the rest of us died.
In This Means War! The Cuban Missile Crisis is the background for a smaller neighborhood war--one between the boys and the girls to prove which group is stronger, faster, braver. As with the larger crisis, the neighborhood tests soon get out of hand, progressing from foot races and Twist contests to dangerous challenges. Where is the line between bravery and foolishness? What does it mean to be a hero?
Hearn, Julie. Ivy. 2008.
This story takes place in London in the early 1800s. Ivy's family is poor and makes it's living in dishonest ways. When she is little, she is taken away from her family by Carroty Kate, a woman who comes from a gang of criminals worse than her own family. They use her to help them rob people, particularly other children. When Kate dies, Ivy ends up back with her family again. Ivy ends up as an artists model for a rich artist but his mother hates her immediately and does everything she can to be rid if her. Ivy has a problem with laudanum, which is a liquid that was put into water and would put a person to sleep. It's a drug that could easily kill a person if taken improperly.
There were aspects of the story that didn't make sense to me, which I won't write about here because I don't want to give away anything about the plot or characters. Certain things that were in the book didn't add to the story at all and left me wondering why they were in there at all. This book won't disappoint fans of historical fiction, but other readers might not find much to like about it.
In Ellen Wittlinger's gripping middle school novel, the subject of "boys against the girls" is played out in front of a dramatic historical backdrop. With the United States and Cuba locked in a nuclear stare-down, 4 girls and 4 boys in Wisdom Hill, a Southern Air Force town bearing the troubling signs of a military build-up, challenge each other to a series of "tests" to prove, once and for all, who is the best--boys or girls. Children's literature is no stranger to the battle of the sexes: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's multi-volume "Boys against Girls" series is full of fun and pranks, and Andrew Clements' "No Talking" elevates a stubborn battle of wills into a constructive social exercise. In "This Means War!" however, there is no doubt that the stakes in this battle are high, as the childrens game becomes complicated by a maelstrom of pre-teen disorientation, confused loyalties, and the escalating anxiety concerning the Cuban missile crisis.
There were times when this was a stressful book to read. I know how the Cuban Missile Crisis was eventually resolved, so the stress did not originate from the historical context of the book. Instead, the activity of the children, seen through the eyes of protagonist Juliet Klostermeyer, is fraught with peril. Each team is goaded on by a leader who simply cannot be seen to be weak or less than the best: Bruce Wagner is a juvenile delinquent in the making who is reduced to hanging out with children much younger than himself because he has been forced to repeat grades in school. He is a loud-mouthed bully that the younger boys don't know how to rid themselves of, despite the fact that he upsets and scares them. Patsy Osborne is a bold and confident girl whose fiercely competitive streak is antagonized by contemporary attitudes about girls. Bruce is the obvious villain, but Patsy is the danger you suddenly realize has been present all along and is consequently harder to contain.
This is a thought-provoking book about the fears of children, and the lengths to which they will go to face, combat, or mask those fears. If Juliet were not already distressed about a domestic situation in which her mother is too busy to spend time with her, her father's business is threatened by larger competition, her older sister thinks she is a nuisance, and her best friend (who happens to be a boy) is suddenly ignoring her, the news about the missle crisis might have remained just that--news. But as Juliet sees chinks in her localized support system, there is space for larger concerns to creep in and threaten her.
Just as the Cuban Missile Crisis dictates the fear factor in this story, so does its end project a sense a optimism on the book's finale. After an intense week that has seen both the larger and the local world teeter on the brink of disaster, Juliet and her friends are afforded respite, redemption and the luxury to reflect on their experience. The war, as it were, is over, and it is time to start the reconstruction. This is a book which will resonate with its core audience--preteens living in an uncertain world, where the meanings of bravery, fear, and loyalty are questioned everyday.