Book-Reviews

The Year the Swallows Came Early, by Kathryn Fitzmaurice; HarperCollins: New York, 2009; $16.99 What happens when someone you love betrays you? Well, in this book, The Year the Swallows Came Early, you can learn that understanding and forgiving someone you love is the key for your own peace of mind. The main character of this book, Eleanor (Groovy) Robinson, deals with disappointment and anger, but later she finds out that you can’t hate someone forever and that, sooner or later, you’ll have to forgive them. When this story starts off, taking place in the historic town of San Juan Capistrano, Groovy witnesses her dad being arrested and has no clue why. That night her mom reveals to Groovy that her great-grandmother had left her a lot of money. Upon hearing this, Groovy starts to eagerly make plans for using this large sum to go to cooking school. But she only gets a few seconds to be excited because her mother shatters Groovy’s dreams by informing her that her father had lost all that money on a single bet, and that was why she had called the police. When I read this part, I was automatically hooked because I so desperately wanted to know how Groovy would react to this news. Groovy was disappointed about losing that money, but she also started to doubt that her father cared about her. Meanwhile, Groovy’s best friend, Frankie, doesn’t even want to think about his mother or read her letters. He is mad because his mother went on a voyage with his stepfather and left him with his stepbrother, Luis. She promised to be back in three days but didn’t come back for three years. That whole time, Frankie believed that she had betrayed him, and so he never chose to read or hear the explanations from her, and he doesn’t even want to know the real reason she didn’t come back. Even when she appears at Luis’s shop, Frankie still chooses not to listen to her, and so she leaves with a broken heart. But there are wise and helpful people in Frankie and Groovy’s neighborhood. Mr. Tom really wanted to help Frankie. He once said to him, “All that anger will turn you to stone.” Unfortunately, that’s exactly what ends up happening to Frankie, and then to Groovy as well. From just being sad and discouraged, Groovy becomes very angry and starts to hate her father. When mid-spring came, so did the scout swallow, and this time early. The rest of the swallows followed, bringing many changes. Groovy finally talked to her father on the phone, and she decided to forgive him and give him another chance. After a while, Luis explained to Frankie what really happened with his mother. Frankie understood and sincerely forgave her. It was a year of much disappointment and loss, but it would be a year to remember, the year the swallows came early. I learned from this book that “people are just who they are.” That means you need to be able to accept and trust the people you love before jumping to conclusions or thinking negatively about them. I also learned that you can’t carry so much anger and hatred inside yourself because it will slowly destroy you and make many people around you miserable and unhappy. You should try to do as many good things as you can, and stay positive, because it will not only make you feel good, but it’ll also brighten up the world around you. Nicole Timofeevski, 11Carlsbad, California

After the Train, by Gloria Whelan; HarperCollins: New York, 2009; $15.99 Picture this: you are thirteen years old and living in Rolfen, West Germany, ten years after WWII has ended. All your history teacher talks about is the war and how big an impact it had on history, along with how horrible it was for the Jewish people. You know all this already and you think everyone should move on and live in the moment. Of course you have sympathy for all the people who suffered and died, but right now your biggest concerns are playing summer soccer with your two best friends and helping your father rebuild the town’s church in your spare time. This is Peter Liebig’s life in a nutshell, until he discovers a treasure trove of letters that had been exchanged between his mother and father during the war. While their country fought, Mr. Liebig, an architect by trade, built barracks in the prison camps. At home Mrs. Liebig, eager to play her part in the war, worked as a nurse at the Red Cross organization, treating mild wounds and making care packages for the soldiers. She saw the trains shipping off thousands of Jews to concentration camps but chose to ignore it all. The couple was happy helping the cause and blissfully unaware of the terrors going on around them. That all changed when a desperate woman held a baby out the window of a train and begged Mrs. Liebig to take him. The small child, later named Peter, had changed the Liebigs’ lives forever. Peter, now grown up, had always assumed that he was the son of his parents, just as anyone would. But when he discovers his Jewish heritage, his world is flipped upside down and he scrambles for anything to hold onto while he gets his head around this newly discovered information. When Peter talks to one of his father’s Jewish friends and starts attending some of their religious services and dinners with him, he finds it easier and easier to come to terms with his past. I thought I knew everything about my family and my past, but two years ago, when my father told me how my great-grandfather and great-uncles survived Auschwitz, I was astounded! They had lived in Poland and were helping Jews escape persecution. But the Nazis caught onto them, and they were sent to one of the worst prison camps created. Luckily, they all survived, but not without injuries. I was most certainly not in the same predicament as Peter, but I could relate to him and his sense of astonishment. Peter is a good role model, and easy to relate to. He has the mind of an adolescent, making his thoughts about soccer and friends easy for the young reader to understand, but he is also a very kind boy with a logical mind and a generous heart. He is curious and works hard, as evidenced by the sections of bricks he carefully and dutifully laid while learning the trade with his father. He helps his friends with their crazy ideas and is respectful and polite to his parents and other adults, making him my favorite character in the book. Because it is short in length, I found this book to be slightly predictable and some parts repetitive and slow moving. Overall, however, I enjoyed it. The book is a wonderful example of how learning about your past is not always a bad thing, and can be a grounding experience. Siena Teare, 12Essex Junction, Vermont