Overview
The year 1978 has been a pretty good one for Eva Lott. She has a terrific best friend, she's dating the best-looking guy in school, and she just made the varsity swim team. So when her widowed dad says it's time for them to move, she's not exactly thrilled. And when he tells her that he intends to move to Communist Poland to help with a radical underground movement . . . Well, it's all downhill from there.
Soon Eva has been transplanted from her comfortable Chicago suburb to a land that doesn't even have meat in its stores, let alone Peter Frampton records. And everywhere she goes, the government is watching. But Eva begins to warm to her new life. Sometime between eating lard on bread and dodging the militia, she makes a handsome new friend, Tomek. And soon she is wondering if maybe she's found home in the most unlikely of places.
Synopsis
Eva Lott is a young girl with an active social life and a lot to look forward to . . . until her dad decides they're moving to Communist Poland.
Sherry Korthalls - VOYA
In 1978, eighteen-year-old Eva Lott is forced to leave Chicago and accompany her father to Poland, where he has accepted a job training writers for an underground Catholic movement opposing the country's communist government. Despondent over the austerities of Polish life and her mother's death two years ago, Eva is loath to stay, but she experiences a change of heart after becoming involved with handsome dissident Tomek Muchowiecki. When Tomek's commitment to his God and his country leads him to assume a dangerous mission to secure an illegal printing press for the movement, Eva joins him, and the intrigue intensifies their relationship. As Krakow's church bells toll to celebrate John Paul II's papal election, Eva rediscovers hope and resolves to remain in Poland with Tomek. Mackall's stark imagery, incorporation of Polish vocabulary, and selective use of historical detail lend a sense of realism and authenticity to Eva's story, which parallels the author's experiences in southern Poland during the late 1970s. As in a previous novel, Love Rules (Tyndale House, 2005), Mackall fuses young love with Christian themes to create a gratifying teen romance. Fans of Christian fiction by writers like Melody Carlson and Yvonne Lehman will find this book irresistible, but Mackall's overtly religious perspective and subtle discriminations marginalizing non-Christian Poles and uniformly debasing communists will likely curb popular appeal. Use of debatable data rendering the Holocaust an event as devastating to Christian populations as to Jewish populations may also prove a concern for some public and school libraries. VOYA CODES: 3Q 2P J S (Readable without serious defects; For the YA with a specialinterest in the subject; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2006, Harcourt, 256p., $17. Ages 12 to 18.
Editorials
Children's Literature
First Eva's mother dies from cancer. Then her father decides to drag her to Communist Poland. He wants to "make a difference" by teaching for a year in an underground education movement. But Eva wants to stay put in Chicago. She's got a hot boyfriend, the best friend in the whole world, and a new position on the varsity swim team. Sure, her grades are slipping. Yes, she got busted for shoplifting. But that is hardly grounds for forcing her to interrupt her senior year--even if her father is adamant the experience will be good for her. Eva hates everything about Poland. The weather is crappy, there is next to nothing to eat, and she has to share a tiny, unheated room with her father. Even more irritating, the government is always watching. But like the sun that eventually pokes through the clouds, Eva's heart begins to soften toward the students her father has come to teach. And when she falls in love, Eva has to decide whether she really wants to leave. Mackall has crafted a fine story. Readers will be enticed by the interaction between Eva and her father, and the close calls between the students and thuggish soldiers. Most satisfying is the personal growth that Eva eventually allows herself. The book's glossary is helpful for keeping up with the Polish phrases that pepper the dialogue. 2006, Harcourt Books, Ages 12 up.—Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt
VOYA
In 1978, eighteen-year-old Eva Lott is forced to leave Chicago and accompany her father to Poland, where he has accepted a job training writers for an underground Catholic movement opposing the country's communist government. Despondent over the austerities of Polish life and her mother's death two years ago, Eva is loath to stay, but she experiences a change of heart after becoming involved with handsome dissident Tomek Muchowiecki. When Tomek's commitment to his God and his country leads him to assume a dangerous mission to secure an illegal printing press for the movement, Eva joins him, and the intrigue intensifies their relationship. As Krakow's church bells toll to celebrate John Paul II's papal election, Eva rediscovers hope and resolves to remain in Poland with Tomek. Mackall's stark imagery, incorporation of Polish vocabulary, and selective use of historical detail lend a sense of realism and authenticity to Eva's story, which parallels the author's experiences in southern Poland during the late 1970s. As in a previous novel, Love Rules (Tyndale House, 2005), Mackall fuses young love with Christian themes to create a gratifying teen romance. Fans of Christian fiction by writers like Melody Carlson and Yvonne Lehman will find this book irresistible, but Mackall's overtly religious perspective and subtle discriminations marginalizing non-Christian Poles and uniformly debasing communists will likely curb popular appeal. Use of debatable data rendering the Holocaust an event as devastating to Christian populations as to Jewish populations may also prove a concern for some public and school libraries. VOYA CODES: 3Q 2P J S (Readable without serious defects; For the YA with a specialinterest in the subject; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2006, Harcourt, 256p., $17. Ages 12 to 18.—Sherry Korthalls