Yoss

Publishers Weekly

Hirsch (Bartlett and the City of Flames) introduces Yoss, who lives in a mountain village that practices a peculiar coming-of-age ritual: during a boy's 14th summer, he leaves home overnight, returning the next morning having "become a man." Yoss walks down the mountain and keeps going, curious about the wider world. He is set upon by thieves, who steal his food and trick him into robbing a passing merchant. The na ve teen believes he has simply recovered a debt (albeit at knifepoint) and follows Conrad and Gaspar into town, where they fence the goods. Figuring out he's fallen in with the wrong crowd, Yoss then joins a group of conniving beggars, who fake injury and dismemberment to earn coins. The merchant he robbed spies him, but saves him from the gallows by "buying" him and making him his slave. Yoss's innocence stands in marked contrast to the corruption he encounters at every turn, but he's also passive and a bit of a bore. The vicious thief, Conrad, is better drawn, and the subplots about the merchant's loyal servant and his beautiful but barren young wife don't help readers grasp Yoss's motivation or growth. With all the horrors visited upon him, the overwhelming message here is "stay home." Ages 12-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

From the Australian, London-based author of Antonios and the Mystery of Theodore Guzman comes a first novel for older readers. Fourteen-year-old Yoss is an innocent lost in a generic medieval world. Curiosity inexplicably causes the young man to become the first in recent memory to leave his idyllic mountain village. While contemplating the warning from his elder that, "Towns swallow up men," Yoss falls in with vicious gambling bandits, takes part in a robbery on the road, and is led to the very town of infamy. The villains—fat, clever Conrad, and skinny, nimble-fingered Gaspar—attempt to train the naivete from him, to no avail. Yet Yoss is slow, not stupid. Gradually the greed of the town surrounds him, almost as suffocating as its filth and fug. In the process, Hirsch parades the entire carnival of medieval life before us: beggars, innkeepers, pawnbrokers, jailers, merchants, even painters. There are few that you would care to meet in a darkened street. The author's vision is dark indeed. Can Yoss escape it? 2004 (orig. 2001), Delacorte Press, Ages 12 up.
—Kathleen Karr

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-This lengthy novel begins in a remote mountain village where boys who turn 14 undergo a ritual of manhood. In the past, youngsters would go forth and return with a needed skill. Now, however, the custom is largely symbolic and most come back the next day. When Yoss ventures forth, he is eager to explore. Before long, he encounters two ruffians who involve him in a robbery. He is so innocent that he believes their excuse about settling a debt with their victim, a merchant, and does not realize a crime has occurred. The merchant eventually catches him and extracts his revenge by making the boy his slave. When his wife allows Yoss to spend time in the house, the man is so infuriated that he throws him down a marble staircase. After Yoss escapes, he takes his experiences home with him and eventually becomes the village leader. This largely allegorical tale of innocence lost is a reverse of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, as Yoss goes from the Celestial City to the City of Destruction, although he returns to the more virtuous place at the end. Hirsch does not portray humanity in a flattering way. In the harsh and hostile town, untrustworthy people lie, murder, and gamble. While much transpires in this coming-of-age tale that mixes fantasy, historical fiction, and adventure, the pace tends to be slow. And, as with any allegory, the moral dominates the story.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A ponderous Candide remake, sans wit, point, memorable characters, or creative spark. In a traditional rite of passage, 14-year-old Yoss leaves his remote village, but instead of returning after a night as other lads do, he continues on-to fall in with, be used by, and ultimately to betray Conrad, a genial, vicious con-man, and then to be purchased for murky reasons by an ambitious merchant. Eventually, Yoss returns to his garden, er, village, his innate innocence roughed up but still essentially intact. Wordy, slow to develop, populated by complex but not compelling characters, and set, mostly, in a grungy, generic European town, this provides plenty of grist for literary analysts, but will disappoint young readers hoping for another sparkler like Hazel Green (2003) or Bartlett and the City of Flames (2003). (Fiction. 12-15)