In the summer of 1945 in Chicago, twelve-year-old Christine anxiously awaits, along with her mother and sister, news of the political activist father they had to leave behind when they emigrated from Poland six years before.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Hotze's second YA novel (after A Circle Unbroken ) has the charm as well as the episodic quality of an old scrapbook. Covering the summer of 1945 as it affects 12-year-old Christine Kosinski, it concentrates on moments of great import, such as the day Christine catches the home-run hit outside Chicago's Wrigley Field and meets a Cubs player--which is also V-E Day and Christine's birthday. But all is not sunny: Christine's family are Polish refugees, but her father has remained behind, a political prisoner, and there is no news of him. Her mother works as a housekeeper, her thoroughly Americanized older sister works in a parachute factory and dances with servicemen at the Aragon Ballroom, and Christine, meanwhile, launches an ill-fated money-making scheme with her friend Arlene, wonders about sex and death, and spends a memorable Saturday night scooping ice cream at the drugstore. Although the period atmosphere is not as dense as in Judy Glassman's The Morning Glory War , Hotze's characters are magnetic and inventively drawn, and their concerns will help illuminate difficult historical events. Ages 9-12.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 5-7-- Christine Kosinksi has never liked endings, but she learns that endings are also beginnings. It's May, 1945, and the end of the war in Europe brings hope and the expectation of news of her father, caught in Poland when the Germans invaded. It's also Christine's 12th birthday, and she says goodbye to childhood and looks forward to being a young lady like her sister, Rosie. The end of the school year brings the start of baseball season, and Christine can watch home games from her apartment's balcony across from Wrigley Field. She and a friend decide to sell tickets for these choice seats until her mother puts a stop to it. The ticket scheme is just one of the vignettes that fills this book with a nostalgic glow. It comes alive with all the details of a hot summer in 1940s Chicago: the multiethnic neighborhood in which everyone knows everyone else's business; having everything within walking, or at least skating, distance; ice cream sodas at the local malt shop served by a soda jerk who's quite a dish himself; and the fairyland beauty of the Aragon Ballroom, where Christine finally goes to dance. The end of summer brings more new beginnings as Rosie marries, and Hotze achieves an emotional thrill when news of the girls' father arrives on the wedding day. Warm and engaging, this book evokes a seemingly more innocent time when the sun always shone, there was nothing left to fear, and the future looked bright . Not a necessary purchase, but one that should do well where this type of historical fiction is popular. --Susan M. Harding, Mesquite Public Library, TX
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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