Overview
Fourteen-year-old Kenny's dad has just died, and now Kenny must become the breadwinner. "Be careful going through the flatlands," his mother warns him. "Don't stop for anyone." But Kenny does stop, and what happens next will define the man he becomes. These stories, which track the lives of Kenny, his family, and his friends over decades, are about the place where adolescence collides with adulthood. The second story involves Kenny's two daughters, who find they must rely on each other despite their differences. The third story is a snapshot of a school bully with a secret; years later, two of her victims meet her in a shop and are forced to reevaluate their feelings about her. In Wolf on the Fold, Judith Clarke paints the lives of her characters with skill and compassion, qualities that have made her one of Australia's leading writers in the young adult genre.A series of stories that follows members of an Australian family through several generations.
Synopsis
Fourteen-year-old Kenny's dad has just died, and now Kenny must become the breadwinner. "Be careful going through the flatlands," his mother warns him. "Don't stop for anyone." But Kenny does stop, and what happens next will define the man he becomes. These stories, which track the lives of Kenny, his family, and his friends over decades, are about the place where adolescence collides with adulthood. The second story involves Kenny's two daughters, who find they must rely on each other despite their differences. The third story is a snapshot of a school bully with a secret; years later, two of her victims meet her in a shop and are forced to reevaluate their feelings about her. In Wolf on the Fold, Judith Clarke paints the lives of her characters with skill and compassion, qualities that have made her one of Australia's leading writers in the young adult genre.
Publishers Weekly
In six concisely wrought chapters, Clarke (Night Train) spans four generations of an Australian family, elegantly encapsulating the emotions of children and youths as they are initiated into the adult world. The book opens in 1935, when 14-year-old Kenny Sinclair, his father newly buried, dejectedly sets off to find his first job. Accosted by a menacing stranger, Kenny unexpectedly recalls a poem he'd had to memorize for school: "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold" and repeating the lines helps him maintain his calm and so save his own life. These words come to symbolize threatening situations later faced with equal resiliency by Kenny's children and grandchildren as they try to appease the disquieted spirit of an elderly aunt with memory loss, struggle to survive in a war zone, or attempt to block out angry words exchanged by parents. An especially memorable chapter, set in 1975, allows Kenny only a cameo role, as the neighbor of a refugee family scarred by their flight from war-torn Uganda. Tender, often wrenching narrative subtly guides readers to the essence of each character introduced, inviting them to share the terror, joys and epiphanies of each rite of passage. Clarke's quiet wisdom and keen understanding will touch hearts and stimulate the imagination. Ages 10-up. (June) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
In six concisely wrought chapters, Clarke (Night Train) spans four generations of an Australian family, elegantly encapsulating the emotions of children and youths as they are initiated into the adult world. The book opens in 1935, when 14-year-old Kenny Sinclair, his father newly buried, dejectedly sets off to find his first job. Accosted by a menacing stranger, Kenny unexpectedly recalls a poem he'd had to memorize for school: "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold" and repeating the lines helps him maintain his calm and so save his own life. These words come to symbolize threatening situations later faced with equal resiliency by Kenny's children and grandchildren as they try to appease the disquieted spirit of an elderly aunt with memory loss, struggle to survive in a war zone, or attempt to block out angry words exchanged by parents. An especially memorable chapter, set in 1975, allows Kenny only a cameo role, as the neighbor of a refugee family scarred by their flight from war-torn Uganda. Tender, often wrenching narrative subtly guides readers to the essence of each character introduced, inviting them to share the terror, joys and epiphanies of each rite of passage. Clarke's quiet wisdom and keen understanding will touch hearts and stimulate the imagination. Ages 10-up. (June) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.KLIATT
Clarke is an acclaimed author of children's books in Australia and this book consists of loosely woven stories in a style not common in YA publications in the United States. In this, each story takes place in a different era, but links members of one family across the years. The first story takes place in 1935, during the Depression in Australia, when Kenny's family is shaken to its core by the death of their father. Kenny, at 14, has to go to work to support the family to help them stay together. There are passages in italics in this story telling of Kenny in his adult life, with references to his children and grandchildren; these are the principal characters in the subsequent stories, which take place in the 1950s, in 1975, in 1991, in 2002. Each story is about a test of strength, in some way, revealing this strong glue that unites this family, perhaps passed down through the generations. American readers will be challenged by the Australian references as well as by the unusual format. Once they persist through several of the stories, however, they will be intrigued by Clarke's style and anxious to get the puzzle pieces to fit together by the end of the book. In some ways, Clarke's style is old-fashioned, reminiscent of, say, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, about another poor family struggling to survive and to be good people. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2000, Front Street, 169p.,— Claire Rosser