Remembrance

Publishers Weekly

Carnegie Medalist Breslin's (Whispers in the Graveyard) moving WWI novel starts slowly but ultimately packs a wallop as it chronicles the war's effects on five teens in rural Scotland. Swayed by the patriotic propaganda, 17-year-old John Malcolm, a shopkeeper's son, can't wait to fight, and his clever brother, Alex, schemes to enlist, though he's only 14. Meanwhile, upper-class Francis, an intellectual with pacifist leanings, discerns from news reports the senselessness of combat. Francis's younger sister, Charlotte, trains as a nurse and eventually tends soldiers; she and John Malcolm strike up a tentative romance. John Malcolm's twin, Maggie, somewhat precociously a feminist ("Was she unconsciously following her mother's behavior in deferring intellectual activities to the males in the house?" she asks herself), finds a new calling through war work. As the characters participate in sweeping social transformations, they also observe the warfront. Francis, corresponding with Maggie from the trenches, offers precise and disturbing details, including the "monumental madness" behind military procedures. While John Malcolm and Alex seem like stand-ins designed to represent the vast majority of soldiers, the other protagonists are forcefully depicted, allowing contemporary readers to understand the traumas of war. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-Charlotte Armstrong-Barnes and her beloved older brother, Francis, live in the big house in their tiny Scottish village, but the boundaries of class that traditionally separated their lives from those of the shop-keeping Dundas family are shattered by World War I. Handsome John Malcolm, her first love, would never have been Charlotte's husband, but when he falls at the Somme, she grieves deeply. Francis is a family embarrassment because of his antiwar views. Yet, his ideas and thoughtful approach attract competent Maggie Dundas, who left school at 14 but whose thirst for learning has not been satisfied. Her curiosity and willingness to educate herself strike a chord in him, and, when he finally enlists and is sent to the front, they correspond. The young women volunteer as nurses, ending up in France. Maggie's shop-keeping skills lead her to become an administrator, with opportunities never before available to a woman. Her younger brother lies about his age and identity, and disappears into the stream of young men sent to counter the German offensive and die in the trenches. The chaos and waste of World War I battlefields is clearly depicted here. The five protagonists are sympathetically portrayed, each with their own ideas about war changing as they themselves grow. The hopeful ending doesn't minimize the losses, but provides solace. This thought-provoking examination of the nature of that war and that world results in splendid historical fiction.-Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Five teens from a small Scottish town become caught up in the maelstrom of WWI. The story opens in 1915; the war has been going on for almost a year, and no one now expects a swift and easy victory. The wealthy and well-bred Charlotte Armstrong-Barnes defies her mother by taking up nursing to join the cause; her brother Francis does the same by refusing to take a commission. Storekeeper’s son John Malcolm Dundas looks forward to coming of age to join up, as does his younger brother Alex; meanwhile, sister Maggie begins to question the assumed role of women in society and starts to dream of greater things. The expected love interests ensue: Charlotte and John Malcolm fall head-over-heels, but their romance is cut tragically short by German fire; Francis and Maggie enjoy a slowly burgeoning relationship of the mind that becomes love as they take their separate parts in the struggle in France. New to the American market, Carnegie Medalist (Whispers in the Graveyard) Breslin’s narrative moves back and forth to give each character’s perspective, occasionally allowing them to speak directly via letters, but the two who come most to life are the theoretically inclined Francis and Maggie. Charlotte, having lost love early, takes on a virtually saintly mien, and Alex rarely emerges as his own character. A tendency to tell rather than show—"The jingoistic tones of the headlines contrasting with the constant news of death lowered [Francis’s] spirits. He felt helpless in the face of what he saw as some desperate intent by civilization to destroy itself . . . "—keeps the reader at arm’s length and hinders involvement in what could have been a three-hanky story. As it is, it remains aperfectly serviceable historical novel, but nothing more. (Fiction. 12+)