Breslin, Theresa. Remembrance.Random House, Delacorte. 294p. c2002. 0-385-73015-2, $16.95. JS Breslin has had a long career in Scotland as a librarian and a writer (winning the Carnegie Medal for the children's book, Whispers in the Graveyard). Her traditional style seems suitable for this story about five young people from a Scottish village who are caught up in the fighting in WW I. A portion of a poem by Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE MC (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English poet and author. He became known as a writer of satirical anti-war verse during World War I, but later won acclaim for his prose work. at the beginning sets the tone: "You smug-faced crowds with kindling kindling (kinˑ·dling), n change in brain function wherein repeated chemical or electrical stimuli induce seizures. kindling 1. parturition in the doe rabbit. eye / Who cheer when soldier lads march by, / Sneak home and pray you'll never know / The hell where youth and laughter go." Breslin tells the story in the omniscient om·nis·cient adj. Having total knowledge; knowing everything: an omniscient deity; the omniscient narrator. n. 1. One having total knowledge. 2. Omniscient God. third person, shifting between the main characters as their involvement in the war intensifies. The reserve with which she begins the novel breaks down as the horrors of the war descend de·scend v. de·scend·ed, de·scend·ing, de·scends v.intr. 1. To move from a higher to a lower place; come or go down. 2. upon the five main characters, who come from two families of different social classes--the war eventually destroys the pretensions that allowed these castes to exist. The two young women, Charlotte and Maggie, are bright and energetic. They become nurses near the Western Front in France. Charlotte loves Maggie's brother John, a soldier; Maggie has a long relationship with Charlotte's brother Francis, who is basically a pacifist but is in the trenches as an officer; the fifth character is young Alex, the brother of John and Maggie, who lies about his age and enlists in the army to avenge a·venge tr.v. a·venged, a·veng·ing, a·veng·es 1. To inflict a punishment or penalty in return for; revenge: avenge a murder. 2. the death of his brother. The war changes the course of their lives inalterably. Breslin tells this moving story of war, grief, love, and friendship with the slight formality formality, in chemistry: see chemical equilibrium; concentration. that her characters and their world dictate. Perhaps this makes the chaos they experience as the war continues even more poignant. I like the cover, a photograph of schoolgirls with flowers honoring the veterans of the war--Remembrance. Here is a story that will help schoolchildren schoolchildren school npl → écoliers mpl; (at secondary school) → collégiens mpl; lycéens mpl schoolchildren school understand the kinds of young people who fought in that war and what happened to their lives. Claire Rosser, KLIATT |
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