School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-8-The dangers of nuclear power are explored in this environmental drama (Holt, 1994) by award-winning author Karen Hesse. Nyle, 13, lives on a Vermont sheep farm with her grandmother. She's no stranger to loss-her father disappeared and her mother died when she was young. But when the Cookshire nuclear power plant experiences a radiation leak, the effect on her Vermont community is tragic. Nyle trudges through the hills in a radiation mask and the teachers at school discuss the devastating dangers of the meltdown. Only a quirk of fate and a prevailing wind saved Nyle's farm. When Nyle's grandmother takes in refugees from the disaster-the plant manager's wife and son-Nyle learns that forgiveness and kindness are the keys to moving on from tragedy. Julia Whelan does an admirable job of infusing the characters with distinct personalities. The message is an important one, but the story is relentlessly grim for the first few hours, making for a depressing listening experience. Those who persevere to the end will find hope as Nyle comes to the conclusion that her generation must fight for change.-Tricia Melgaard, Centennial Middle School, Broken Arrow, OK (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
After a catastrophic accident at a nuclear power plant not far from their small New England sheep farm, 13-year-old Nyle Sumner and her grandmother slowly discover they have been spared from direct radiation. Gran decides to take in two evacuees, 15-year-old Ezra Trent and his mother, both of whom are severely ill. Nyle, obliged to monitor her surroundings with a radiation detector, wishes there were also some way to measure the Trents' ability to cause her pain: she hasn't entirely recovered from the deaths of her mother and grandfather years earlier, nor from her father's abandonment, and she must overcome her terror of growing attached to the refugees. As if to counteract the potential for sensationalism or dystopic fantasy, Hesse ( Letters from Rifka ) grounds her story with keen observations of the natural world--e.g., Nyle describes training a sheep dog, working in the pasture, farm work (``I like spring . . . when the grass greens up and the lambs come''). She also invests her characters with a certain formality. Nyle and Gran both demonstrate an archetypal New England self-containment and self-sufficiency; Mrs. Trent, raised in Israel and therefore no Yankee, is equally measured and reserved; Ezra, too, rarely voices his feelings. The author's understated approach heightens the emotional impact of her searching and memorable tale. Ages 11-13. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
The chilling aftereffects of a nuclear accident are explored in this grim, moving novel set in rural Vermont. Nyle and her grandmother take two refugees from the area near to the power plant into their home, and Nyle, whose own mother and grandfather are dead, slowly allows herself to befriend and come to love the fifteen-year-old boy, who is suffering from radiation sickness. From HORN BOOK 1994, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A massive nuclear accident has just occurred in southern Vermont. The first scene in this compelling novel parallels the kind of negligence that caused it: Eighth-grader Nyle and her friend Muncie confront a vicious neighbor whose dog has slaughtered sheep on Nyle's grandmother's farm. The young people are masked, even though a west wind has mitigated most of the fallout from the nearby plant. But Boston has been evacuated; an uncle has had to destroy his cattle; and though rain clears the air, much farmland is poisoned, death's full toll is yet to come, and the prevailing, often irrational fear will soon drive a wedge between the girls. When Gran takes in two survivors from the plant, Nyle is stricken: Ezra, 15, now lies deathly ill in the room where her mother and grandfather died. Conquering her memories and her dread, Nyle brings all her imagination to helping Ezra heal both his body and a deeply troubled spirit. In time, he starts school and begins to ponder how people, like sheep, can be led to foolishly accept a known danger; Ezra hopes to live to do better. In the hands of a less gifted author this scenario might signal an issue-driven story, but Hesse transcends the specific to illuminate universal questions of responsibility, care, and love. When Nyle compares Ezra's courage to Anne Frank's he cries out, ``Do I have to die in the end too so people won't forget what I died for?'' The answer is almost inevitable; yet Hesse portrays her characters' anguish and their growing tenderness with such unwavering clarity and grace that she sustains the tension of her lyrical, understated narrative right to her stunning, beautifully wrought conclusion. (Fiction. 12+)
Booklist Review
Gr. 6-8. A leak at the Cookshire nuclear plant spreads radiation contamination throughout New England, leaving death and ruination in its wake. Thirteen-year-old Nyle and her grandmother continue tending sheep on their Vermont farm, wearing protective masks and hoping the wind continues blowing east. When Ezra and his mother, evacuees from Boston, come to stay at the farm, Nyle's fear of intimacy keeps her away from Ezra, but as she comes to know him, and cares for him during a period of acute radiation sickness, she finds a way through her fear, comes to love him, and is able, in the end, to let him go. Nyle's friendship with her classmate Muncie, a dwarf, is well drawn, as is Nyle's emotional growth throughout the novel. Both the rural New England setting and the details of Nyle's day-to-day life are convincingly described. Hesse introduces important issues--environmental disaster, friendship, first love, loss, and death--in a novel that is reasonably accessible; however, the book will require effort from its intended audience, as its focus is on character growth and development, and the plot moves rather slowly. ~--Merri Monks