Mal Peet (1947–2015) is the acclaimed author of the Carnegie Medal–winning novel Tamar as well as the Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book Life: An Exploded Diagram and three Paul Faustino novels: Keeper, The Penalty, and Exposure, a winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. He is also the co-author of Cloud Tea Monkeys, Mysterious Traveler, and Night Sky Dragons, all of which he wrote with his wife, Elspeth Graham.
Peet's (Keeper) novel employs separate narrative threads to track the grief of a teen puzzling out her grandfather's suicide, and the same man's youth in Holland during WWII, where he and another Dutchman worked with the British to repel the Nazi occupation. Both men have code names and fake passports: Tamar's charge is to repair the fractured local resistance movement; Dart runs the wireless, sending and receiving encrypted messages. Fear of capture constantly stalks each, but Tamar is quartered on the site of a previous missionAa farm owned by Marijke, his beautiful lover. Dart is posing as a doctor at a nearby insane asylum, staying alert for late-night transmissions by popping Benzedrine. As winter sets in, so do hunger and desperation. It becomes less clear who the enemy is, as the locals resist Tamar's leadership, and Dart misunderstands Marijke's feelings for him and her relationship with Tamar. Only one man returns to England after the warAand it is his granddaughter, also named Tamar, who receives a box of effects following his death. She then undertakes a journey to understand the box's mysterious contents. Identity confusion is a topic near and dear to teenage hearts, but Peet doesn't introduce the younger Tamar until 100 pages in, and doesn't develop her story nearly as well as her grandfather's. Comparisons to Aidan Chambers's Postcards From No Man's Land are inevitableAreaders who savored it may also take to this complex tale about how war casualties can keep accruing, generations after the battle ends. Ages 14-up. (Feb.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
Tamar's strange name was given to her by her grandfather. Searching for the reason behind his suicide, she uncovers the story of three Dutch resistance operatives-Dart, Marijke, and Tamar (her namesake?). While fighting to defeat their Nazi occupiers in World War II, the three fell into a tragic romantic triangle, with generational repercussions. Is there anything sexier than doomed resistance fighters in love? For fans of Casablanca (starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, 1942). Why It Is for Us: This book's wartime setting, flawed characters, and complex narrative structure make for an incredibly satisfying read. [The hardcover was published in 2007.] Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
Gr 8 Up-This lengthy Carnegie Medal-winning novel is masterfully crafted, written in cinematic prose, and peopled by well-drawn, multidimensional characters. Intense and riveting, it is a mystery, a tale of passion, and a drama about resistance fighters in the Netherlands during World War II. The story unfolds in parallel narratives, most told by an omniscient narrator describing the resistance struggle, and fewer chapters as a narrative told by 15-year-old Tamar, the granddaughter of one of the resistance fighters. The locale and time shift between Holland in 1944 and '45 and England in 1995. The constant dangers faced by the resistance fighters as well as their determination to succeed in liberating their country from German occupation come vividly to life. Dart, Tamar, and Marijke are the main characters in this part of the book. Their loyalty to one another and the movement is palpable though love and jealousy gradually enter the story and painfully change the dynamics. Other characters jeopardize the safety of the group and intensify the life-threatening hazards they face. Peet deftly handles the developing intrigue that totally focuses readers. After her beloved grandfather commits suicide, modern-day Tamar is determined to undercover the mystery contained in a box of seemingly unrelated objects that he has left for her. Peet keeps the story going back and forth in time, and readers must wait till the end of this intricate book to understand fully what happened to these courageous people. This is an extraordinary, gripping novel.-Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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