From School Library Journal
Grade 4-8-Patricia Riley Giff's Newbery Honor-winning story of a special friendship between a young girl and an immigrant boy set in Rockaway during World War II.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Gr. 5^-8. With wry comedy and intense feeling, and without intrusive historical detail, Giff gets across a strong sense of what it was like on the home front during World War II. Lily makes up stories about her involvement with spies, submarines, and anti-Nazi plots in her small seaside town in 1944, but underlying her melodrama and lies is grief for her dead mother. When Lily's father has to leave to fight in France, she is so hurt and furious that she refuses even to say good-bye to him. As she gets to know Albert, an orphaned Hungarian refugee, she learns about his secret anguish: he is guilt-stricken about the younger sister he left behind (he, also, didn't say good-bye), and he is determined, somehow, to cross the ocean and find her. The happy ending, when Lily's father finds Albert's sister in France, is too contrived, but the reunion scenes at home are heartbreaking. The friendship story is beautifully drawn: both Lily and Albert are wary, reluctant, and needy; they quarrel as much as they bond, and in the end, they help each other to be brave. Hazel Rochman
From Kirkus Reviews
In 1944, Lily's eagerly awaited summer vacation becomes a time of anxiety when her widower father, Poppy, announces that he's off to Europe with the US Army Corps of Engineers. Lily's lonely in Rockaway with both her father and her summer friend, Margaret, gone, until she meets an orphan from Budapest living temporarily with her grandmother's neighbor. At first she responds coldly to Albert, but is soon drawn to him by his awkward dignity and his tragic tale of dead parents and ill sister, Ruth, left behind in France. As they care for an abandoned kitten together and wistfully watch ships passing on the horizon, a solid friendship develops, and by the time they part, Lily and Albert have helped each other through difficult times. Much of the plot, characters, and premise is conventional, but Giff (Shark in School, 1994, etc.) really pulls readers' heartstrings with Albert's memories of his family, the loss of Margaret's well-liked brother in the war, and Lily's joyful reunion with Poppy. Pull out the hankies for the final scene, in which Lily returns to Rockaway the following summer to find Albert--and Ruth--waiting for her. It's a strong ending to a deftly told story. (Fiction. 10-12) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
Named a 1998 Newbery Honor Book, an ALA Notable Book, and a Boston Globe--Horn Book Honor Book.
"Details...are woven with great effect into a realistic story."
--The Horn Book Magazine, starred
"Exceptional characterizations and a robust story line...this has all the ingredients that best reward readers."
--Publishers Weekly
"Brilliantly told."
--The New York Times Book Review
"With wry comedy and intense feeling...Giff gets across a strong sense of what it was like on the home front during World War II...The friendship story is beautifully drawn."
--Booklist
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From the Publisher
"...Giff really pulls readers' heartstrings with Albert's memories of his family, the loss of Margaret's well-liked brother in the war, and Lily's joyful reunion with Poppy. Pull out the hankies for the final scene, in which Lily returns to Rockaway the following summer to find Albert--and Ruth--waiting for her. It's a strong ending to a deftly told story."
--Kirkus Reviews
From the Inside Flap
This year, as in other years, Lily has planned a spectacular summer in Rockaway, in her family's cozy house on stilts over the Atlantic Ocean. But by the summer of 1944, World War II has changed almost everyone's life. Lily's best friend, Margaret, and her family have moved to a wartime factory town, and worse, much worse, Lily's father is on his way overseas to the war.
There's no one else Lily's age in Rockaway until Albert comes, a refugee from Hungary, a boy with a secret sewn into his coat. Albert has lost most of his family in the war: he's been through things Lily can't imagine. But when they join together to rescue and care for a kitten, they begin a special friendship. For Lily and Albert have their own secrets to share: They both have told lies, and Lily has told a lie that may cost Albert his life.
From the Back Cover
Author Patricia Reilly Giff's Newbery Honor-winning Lily's Crossing is now available for the first time in paperback!
Every summer Lily and her father go to her family's house in Rockaway, near the Atlantic Ocean. But the summer of 1944 is different. World War II has called Lily's father overseas, Lily's best friend Margaret had to move with her family to a wartime factory town, and Lily is forced to live with her grandmother.
But then a boy named Albert, a refugee from Hungary, comes to live in Rockaway. He has lost most of his family to the war. Soon he and Lily form a special friendship, and they have secrets to share. But they have both told lies, and Lily's lie may cost Albert his life.
About the Author
Patricia Reilly Giff has recieved the Newbery Honor for Pictures of Hollis Woods and Lily’s Crossing, which is also a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book. Nory Ryan’s Song was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an ALA Notable Book.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
He couldn't hear her, but in another flash he saw her, she was sure. And the rest of it seemed to be in slow motion. The next wave was so swollen, so tremendously high, that it pulled his boat up, and up, and the boat poised there on the crest for an instant, motionless. She could see him clearly, the orange of his life jacket standing out even in the darkness.
Then, as the wave slid out from under the boat, she could see the forward part rising, almost straight up. Lily watched it, breathless, as it slid back, and in that second, Albert was tossed into the sea.
She could see the orange life jacket a little longer, but after only seconds a wave pulled her boat in one direction and Albert in another and he disappeared.
She kept calling, kept trying to turn the boat in circles, glancing at the lights on the boardwalk to mark her place, watching for the streaks of lightning to show her where he was.
She veered away from his empty boat, which was spinning first high on a wave, then into the crest. In another flash she saw him again, just the quickest glimpse, the orange life jacket, and his dark head above the water.
"I'm here," she yelled, not sure he had heard her, or even seen her, and then another wave came, a mountain of a swell that moved toward them, pushing Albert toward her. Lily could see him turning toward her, his mouth open. He was gulping water, and she reached out, and by some miracle, her hand hooked around the top of the jacket. She held it, feeling her nails rip, but knowing she wouldn't let go, even if she was pulled out of the boat.
But the wave was past them now, and the water grew calm just for the second he needed to grip the boat, and she pulled at his jacket with both hands until he tumbled into the boat.
From the Hardcover edition.
Winner of a 1998 Newbery Honor Medal, Giff's novel is intensely evocative of time (1944), place (Rockaway), and emotion (excitement, fear, loss and hope). Master storyteller Christina Moore gives voice to every emotion and to each character--spunky Lily; short-tempered and officious Gram; kind and gentle Poppy; and shy, hesitant Albert, with his thick Hungarian accent and the terrible secret he introduces to the once-idyllic summer at the beach. Moore's Lily clings desperately to childhood, innocence and fragments of control, with her silly songs, her forced cheer and her foolish lies. Finally, the realities of war leave Lily throbbing with sadness and ripe for the promise of the future beyond the loss that Giff's closing chapters provide. Moore ably captures this full palette of emotions. T.B. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
