Whelan, Gloria. The impossible journey.WHELAN, Gloria. The impossible journey. (A companion to Angel on the Square). HarperTrophy. 248p. c2003. 0-06-441083-8. $5.99. J To quote from the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, January 2003: Rather unsophisticated younger YAs in the 10-to 13-year-old range, who like historical fiction and improbable adventures, are the audience for this novel--the cover art is reflective of this lack of sophistication so·phis·ti·cate v. so·phis·ti·cat·ed, so·phis·ti·cat·ing, so·phis·ti·cates v.tr. 1. To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly. 2. . The setting is Stalin-era Russia in the 1930s. When their liberal parents are arrested and sent to Siberia, Marya and her little brother Georgi are left with neighbors who don't really want them, so Marya (at 13) decides to travel across Russia to join their mother in Siberia. First they must journey by train for days, and then they face a 1000-mile trek along a major river to the Siberian village where their mother lives in exile. (Their father is in a prison camp, and they don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. where he is.) The journey is the story, essentially, and it is filled with numerous adventures, from attacks by bears and mosquitoes to threats from greedy greed·y adj. greed·i·er, greed·i·est 1. Excessively desirous of acquiring or possessing, especially wishing to possess more than what one needs or deserves. 2. people and bureaucrats, but above all with resourcefulness Resourcefulness Buck clever and temerarious dog perseveres in the Klondike. [Am. Lit.: Call of the Wild] Crichton, Admirable butler proves to be infinite resource for castaway family on island. [Br. Lit. on the part of the children (Georgi is only eight years old), and the kindness of strangers--especially the nomadic See nomadic computing. Samoyed people who herd reindeer reindeer, ruminant mammal, genus Rangifer, of the deer family, found in arctic and subarctic regions of Eurasia and North America. It is the only deer in which both sexes have antlers. in Siberia. These folks take in the children and deliver them safely to their mother, riding the reindeer the final part of the journey. Whelan has done her research and the details of the time and place seem quite real--but readers do have to suspend their disbelief a bit at the improbable elements in the plot. Claire Rosser, KLIATT |
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